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pwilzfan73 · 4 years ago

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True story behind The Conjuring 3 – inside Arne Cheyenne Johnson’s “the devil made me do it” court case

The latest instalment in The Conjuring franchise once again has its roots in a real-life case.

By Patrick Cremona, Radio Times. UK.

Published: Friday, 21st May 2021 at 2:56 pm

The Conjuring 3 takes its title from a real-life court case that dates back to the 1980s. The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It takes a look at the case and the Warrens’ involvement in the case that originated the phrase “the devil made me do it”.

Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga return as paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren for the next instalment in The Conjuring horror franchise, with the new movie heading to UK cinemas on 28th May 2021.

As with the previous movies in the franchise, The Conjuring 3 is taken from a real case file with reported connections to the supernatural. Previously we’ve seen spin-off movies focused on the Annabelle doll, also inspired by the Warrens who keep it in their occult museum.

Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson as Lorraine and Ed Warren. Warner Bros Pictures.

The case in question this time around is the trial of Arne Cheyenne Johnson, a man who was convicted of manslaughter in Connecticut in 1981 – becoming the first person to have claimed a defence of demonic possession during a murder trial.

The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It true story

The Conjuring 3 is inspired by the trial of 19-year-old Arne Cheyenne Johnson, who was charged with murdering his landlord Alan Bono in February 1981. During the trial, the defendant gained infamy for becoming the first person to claim a defence of demonic possession in a United States court – although perhaps unsurprisingly this version of events was not accepted by the judge.

His defence rested on testimony given by the family of his fiancée, Debbie Glatzel. Debbie’s 11-year-old brother had reportedly been the subject of demonic possession in the months prior to the murder, with his parents having grown increasingly worried by a number of unexplained and ominous events.

The story really starts in July 1980, when the 11-year-old David Glatzel was helping Johnson clean up a Connecticut rental property he was prepping to move so he could move in.

While there David claimed to have come across a “burnt and black-looking” old man who he claims pushed him into a waterbed saying he would bring them harm if they moved into the house.

When David returned home he continued to see the old man. He described him as having a white beard, wearing jeans and a flannel shirt. David claimed the man’s skin was charred as if he’d been burnt too. The young boy experienced night terrors and woke up with bruises and scratches on his body. He’d wake screaming and tell his parents he’d seen the sunken features of the old man “like an animal”, with horns, pointy hears and jagged teeth (via People). (The Conjuring 3 demon appears to have gone a different route, with early photos showing a white masked man wearing a striped red long coat.)

The family said they also had heard unexplained noises coming from their attic.

In trying to get to the bottom of the issue they had called in Ed and Lorraine Warren – who by this point were already well-known paranormal experts – to diagnose and cure their son.

Ed Warren said he heard banging and growling sounds coming from their basement, and that he also say a rocking chair move on its own. Speaking to paranormal researcher Tony Spera, Ed claimed David’s toy dinosaur also walked on its own towards the family. He also said a deep voice spoke to them saying: “Beware, you’re all going to die.”

Lorraine also claimed she saw a black mist appear next to David while her husband interviewed him. “While Ed interviewed the boy, I saw a black, misty form next to him, which told me we were dealing with something of a negative nature. Soon the child was complaining that invisible hands were choking him—and there were red marks on him. He said that he had the feeling of being hit,” she told People magazine.

David’s mother Judy had previously claimed it was a ghost, but the Warrens rejected this idea saying it was an indicator of a demon.

Lorraine also claimed she saw David being choked by invisible hands and he told her “he had the feeling he was being hit”. She told People that she could see red marks afterwards and she heard him growl and hiss. Lorraine also claimed he spoke in unrecognisable voices, that he recited passages of the Bible as well as Paradise Lost. Debbie Glatzel also claimed he spit, bit, kicked and swore at her and he flopped around “head to toe like a ragdoll”.

She also told the Chippewa Herald Telegram that “he manifested. Just a face on the wall. High cheekbones. A narrow chin. A thin nose. Big black eyes hidden in dark holes. He showed his teeth.”

Ed Warren also told The Washington Post: “Right away, I knew there was something to this. I felt like a good fisherman when he knows there’s something on the line.” He added that he thought there were 43 demons inside the boy, and David named them all.

David Glatzel’s exorcism

In the movie, Father Gordon (Steve Coulter) blesses the home. The priest’s name was changed for the movie, but a Roman Catholic priest did visit the home to bless it.

After continued efforts from the Warrens, the Glatzels, and multiple priests (including Rev Francis E.Virgulak) a formal exorcism took place, with witnesses claiming that a demon fled the child’s body.

Ed Warren claimed Arne, who was present at the exorcism, shouted: “Take me on, leave my little buddy alone!”

Apparently, David showed signs of improving, but Arne started to deteriorate. TV series A Haunting covered the case in the episode Where Demons Dwell, claiming that the demon took control of Johnson’s car forcing it into a tree. While he was uninjured, he was shaken by the experience. The series also blamed a demon when Johnson fell from a tree while working.

Judy told The Washington Post she paid $75 an hour for a session with a local psychiatrist too, but it was up to church officials to set up and pay for further psychological testing (via Newsweek). David’s parents were told he was “normal” but had a “minimal learning disability”.

Alan Bono’s murder

Clearly not content with its newfound freedom, though, the story goes that the spirit then immediately took control of Johnson and it was under his control that the murder of the landlord took place several months later.

Johnson and Debbie Glatzel decided against renting the original home, and instead rented a small house near Debbie’s work. Debbie was working a dog groomer for the landlord, Alan Bono, 40, who was also the kennel manager.

Bono, who has been renamed in the movie as Bruno Sauls, lived in an apartment above the kennels.

On the day of the murder, Johnson had taken the day off work and spent the day with Debbie, 26, at the kennel. Along with some other companions, Debbie, Johnson and Bono had lunch at a local restaurant and enjoyed a few drinks, becoming drunk in the process, and when they later returned to the kennel a heated fight broke out with Bono becoming increasingly agitated.

During this argument, Bono seized Debbie’s nine-year-old cousin Mary, who had also been present, and refused to let her go – which then led Johnson to confront him and eventually stab him repeatedly with a five-inch pocket knife, all while growling like an animal. Bono suffered “four or five tremendous wounds” mainly to his chest area.

Bono died several hours later and Johnson was later arrested roughly two miles away from the murder. The murder is believed to be the first murder in Brookfield, Connecticut’s 193-year history, and the first in the 30 years since the town had police records.

The next day, Lorraine Warren immediately claimed that it was a case of demonic possession, which naturally led to much media coverage around the world.

Ed and Lorraine Warren

Ed and Lorraine Warren arrive at Danbury Superior Court - Getty

Arne Johnson’s Trial

Johnson’s trial began on 28th October 1981 at Connecticut’s Superior Court in Danbury.

Johnson’s lawyer Martin Minnella attempted to enter a plea of “not guilty” due to demonic possession stating Johnson “was possessed by a demon, and it was a demon who actually manipulated his body.” It was the first known court case in US history that had attempted this defence.

Minnella, speaking about the case and the fame that followed, said: “The courts have dealt with the existence of God. Now they’re going to have to deal with the existence of the Devil.” (via the New York Times).

However, the plea of not guilty due to demonic possession was immediately thrown out by presiding judge Robert Callahan who said that it would be “irrelative and unscientific” to allow testimony on these grounds, and so despite the ensuing media attention the jury was not legally allowed to consider demonic possession.

Johnson’s defence claimed that he hadn’t been the same after Glatzel’s exorcism, and witnesses were called upon saying they saw a demon transfer from Glatzel to Johnson. Debbie Glatzel also testified that Johnson behaved similarly to Glatzel. Ed Warren claimed Johnson had made a “fatal mistake” by taunting the alleged demon.

Debbie claimed Johnson had come to Bono’s apartment to repair a stereo for him, but that Bono had been drinking red wine and the pair got into an argument about payment for the repair. She also said Johnson was in a trance when he stabbed Bono.

According to reports, in the three months Debbie and Johnson had lived next to Bono they had been friends. The police believed that Bono and Debbie’s relationship was more than boss and employee, but Debbie denied this despite the police claiming the argument was over her rather than the stereo. The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It does take this angle into the story, exploring the ‘jealous lover’ plot, which was also shown in the 1983 movie The Demon Murder Case (starring Kevin Bacon).

L-R Patrick Wilson (Ed Warren), Sarah Catherine Hook (Debbie Glatzel) and Vera Farmiga (Lorraine Warren) in New Line Cinema’s ‘The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It.

After the jury deliberated for more than three days, Johnson was convicted of first-degree manslaughter on 24th November 1981 and was sentenced to between 10 and 20 years in prison. He was released in 1986 having only served five years of his sentence.

Even though demonic possession was not actually allowed as a legitimate defence in the trial, the case became colloquially known as “the Devil made me do it case” – hence the subtitle of this film.

Where are the Glatzels and Johnson now?

Johnson married Debbie Glatzel while he was in prison. He also got his high school diploma while inside. The pair went on to have two children.

Lorraine Warren went on to write the book The Devil in Connecticut with Gerald Brittle detailing the case, and they shared the profits from the sales with the Glatzel family. David’s brother Carl Glatzel did speak out against the book when it was republished in 2006 saying it was a “complete lie” and that “the Warrens concocted a phoney story about demons in an attempt to get rich and famous at our expense.”

Carl claimed the Warrens told the family they’d be millionaires – it was later confirmed they were paid $2,000. Carl also says David was suffering with his mental health at the time, but he recovered. In 2007, David and Carl filed a lawsuit against Brittle and the Warrens for unspecified financial damages. They sued the authors and publishers for violating their privacy, libel and “intentional infliction of emotional distress.”

Brittle claims his book is based on fact and he interviewed the Glatzel family for more than 100 hours, which he has video of. Lorraine Warren also said the six priests who performed exorcisms on Glatzel agreed that he was possessed.

Debbie Glatzel and Arne Johnson have always backed the account of the possession, but David’s father denies his son was possessed.

How the movie tackles such a complicated case and how closely they stick to the real life events remains to be seen.

The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It is released in cinemas on 4th June, 2021 on HBO Max and 28th May in the UK.

#radio times #arne johnson true story #the conjuring the devil made me do it #patrick wilson #patrickwilson #actor #pwilzfan73 #movies #edwarren #verafarmiga #lorrainewarren #vera farmiga #sarah catherine hook #arne johnson

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mickstart · 4 years ago

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what do you think are some iconic/memorable schumi moments? i just got into f1 and would like to know more about him bc somehow i can’t really find anything like that about him.... just stats which are incredibly impressive but i can’t find anything about how he behaved or just anything about his personality..... thanks <3

:) Hi anon, thank you for unleashing the beast.

Ok I love you for asking me this thank you SO MUCH. Welcome to the circus I’m glad you’re here! Also yeah, Schumi is often talked about in terms of statistics and not as a human, Which is a shame bc like! Schumi is fascinating and the dynamics on the grid in late 90s F1 is so much fun! Also, this is mainly going to be late 90s -> early 2010s stuff bc I was born in 98 so uhhh I didn’t properly witness ANY 90s stuff and had to learn about it.

OK so I got super carried away but I’ve divided this into 3 sections: Drives/races that I think showcase some of his talents, human moments we need to talk about more, and Chaotic Little Bitch moments. The key thing to remember w/ Schumi is that he personally tends to be nice but as soon as you put him in a competition, Bastard Mode activates like a cat’s pupils going wide.

I am so sorry for the following short essay. Also some crashes are briefly mentioned but only ones with absolutely no injuries and there’s no details.

Chaotic Little Bitch Moments

Schumi debuted as a SUBSTITUTE driver for Jordan when one of their drivers was in police custody (yes. really.) The highest a Jordan had qualified all year was 10th and in his DEBUT at SPA, one of the toughest tracks, in the middle of the season, Schumi qualified that Jordan 7th! THEN his clutch failed before the first lap was even complete, but Benetton and Jordan WENT TO COURT to fight each other to sign him for their team before the next race in Monza. He couldn’t debut normally he HAD to cause a scene and set the tone.

The Red Strings of Fate: He qualified 7th, his iconic 7 starred helmet, his first victory next year was ALSO at Spa - his first complete race would be at Monza, Ferrari Holy Ground, and he finished 5th which 👀 1) he was immediately racing with The Greats. 2) Mr 5 Championships With Ferrari.

Winning a race by taking a stop and go penalty on the last lap, crossing the finish line in the pits, and making such a complicated argument about said penalty that in a hearing that was SUPPOSED to be Mclaren protesting the race result the stewards scrapped the entire penalty and the 3 who awarded it handed in their licenses??? Iconic.

Austria 2002 where Rubens was ordered to give the win to Michael. And then Michael fucking made him stand on the top step on the podium like “oh no no no RUBENS deserves this” and made a big SHOW out of it and its like “Michael stop you’re not making it heartwarming you’re making it WORSE Michael STOP” The Tension of germany 2010 podium VS the theatricality of THIS podium.

Team orders were banned because of this which also makes this indirectly responsible for Fernando Is Faster Than You having to be a coded message. You can’t escape him,

Blocking Alonso in Monaco qualifying and then, years later in 2010, overtaking Alonso technically illegally at Monaco (the race was ending under safety car, but the safety car doesn’t lead them over the line it pits and they’d crossed the safety car line and the regulations were NOT specific about the rules) and getting a 20 second penalty bc Damon Hill was a steward. Haunting FERNANDO specifically at Monaco like the ghost of christmas past? Getting a harsh penalty because ANOTHER driver he’d fucked over was a steward? Forcing the FIA to rewrite the rulebook to account for his nonsense when he was in his FOURTIES? I don’t know another chaos king.

Winning the 1995 championship by crashing into Damon Hill, getting AWAY with it for some reason, and then trying to do the same thing in 1997 to Villeneuve, failing to do so and simply rebounding off of him harmlessly, almost COMICALLY, and beaching his own car in a gravel trap at which point the FIA said “I have had ENOUGH of you Wacky Races Man!” and disqualified him from the entire championship

Forcing Mika off the track so bad at Spa 2000 that Mika realized the only way he was gonna be able to get past him was to re-invent the overtake and go for it whilst they were passing a backmarker. (The overtake itself is at 2:05 in the video but the build up to it is Important bc the key part it’s not just badass, it only happened bc Mika knew who he was dealing with.)

Spa 1998 was a Ridiculously Chaotic race it truly was the Mugello 2020 of its year, and after a crash at the start that took out almost the entire grid Schumi accidentally collided with Coulthard later in the race. (The teams used to have a spare car at every race then, so the race was able to continue after a restart.) This wasn’t a racing thing, Coulthard was getting lapped. So something in Schumi SNAPS, and he storms down the pitlane and tries to fight Coulthard while the mclaren and ferrari mechanics both hold him back and finally drag him away. He projected into the future, saw Coulthard was gonna talk non-stop shit about Seb, and acted accordingly.

Monaco 2012 Pole don’t talk to me about this I still can’t believe the audacity of this man to get the only pole of his comeback, at MONACO, at the ONE RACE where he had a 5 place grid penalty to take!!

In general, I know Cheating Bad but. I HAVE to admire the brainpower it must take to have the rulebook so memorized that whilst driving an F1 car Schumi could spot a loophole the size of the eye of a needle and then dance through it, forcing the FIA to add ANOTHER page to the rule book specially for him bc nobody else even REALISED that loophole existed.

Human Moments

A quick rant about Mika and Schumi’s entire friendship. After Spa 2000 Mika goes up to Michael, says something like “Don’t ever do that again” then they’re friends again. They had this mutual understanding that Racing was not Reality. This goes all the way back to their F3 days they were rivals AND friends for their entire career. They truly were the Sewis of the era if Sebastian was like 50% more evil. Their entire dynamic is “You’re the only motherfucker in this pit lane who can handle me”. Schumi would do some bullshit and every other driver would throw up their hands in frustration and Mika would just go “Okay” and drive better to put him in his place bc he was the only one who could keep up, and Schumi very visibly LOVED that he’s grinning after Mika owns his entire ass with that overtake at Spa. They were unstoppable force meets immovable object and I’m so sad their rivalry isn’t more talked about bc the way Mika is the only driver who can get him to behave like a normal human being is SO entertaining.

This is a sad one so I won’t link it but he started crying in the 2000 Monza press-conference with his brother and Mika when he equaled one of Senna’s records. The press kept trying to ask questions about it and Mika just has this death grip on his shoulder and tries to get them to stop or let them take a break and it’s so sad but also important to know about.

Once said he didn’t want Mick to race in F1 bc the pressure of his name would put Mick under so much stress and he wanted his son to be happy. (He fully supported Mick in his endeavors! But only after making absolutely sure it was what Mick wanted, and making sure he knew he could just race for fun if he wanted and it didn’t have to be F1)

This whole interview just after Mick was born with the Schumacher family. Special shout out to Gina on his head the entire video and also Corinna talking to the press while Michael is captivated by Mick. Me too Michael.

Once allegedly pleaded to take a stray kitten home from the track?

I reblogged this yesterday but. Sticking like glue to Sebastian at an F1 test and immediately being like “This is my new son he’s gonna go far”. There’s a lot of pictures out there also of Michael being a guest at the karting races Seb went to as a kid and baby Seb visibly losing his fucking mind at being given a trophy by his idol. Every day of my life I think about him trying to ruffle Seb’s hair through his helmet at Brazil 2012

WInning the championship in 2000. Him thanking the entire team individually and pausing mid-celebration to kiss his wife Corinna so tenderly it’s in the F1 opening. Also, the way it literally cuts from the rest of McLaren looking like they’re attending a funeral to Mika grinning at him and hugging him fucking SENDSSSSS me.

Schumi was a little shit in all the 2010-12 press conferences like, lowering Lewis’ chair, playing with a microphone wire, but ESPECIALLY corrupting baby Seb and getting him to mess with Nico Rosberg.

He’s just GOOFY! Like I refuse to let him be remembered as a terrifying force of nature he was so goofy kind of similarly to Seb. PLEASE watch this incredibly awkward interview he did with Coulthard on a golf buggy where they both had to pretend they hadn’t thought about murdering each other at least once. I think Sky F1 should force Brocedes to do this when covid’s over. “Do you mind if I drive?” “Yes.”

EDIT: I CANNOT BELIEVE I forgot the 1999 Canada press conference where Eddie Irvine and Mika Hakkinen get into a water fight and Schumi immediately grabs a towel and hides behind it and is like “I had NOTHING to do with it” 🥺 adorable, actually

A lot of people at Ferrari, including Rob Smedley (who was on the other side of the garage with Felipe Massa so not in his inner circle) have said that a lot of the success of the team came from Schumi’s LEADERSHIP more than anything, that he’d make the team get together to bond all the time. When Schumi moved to Ferrari in 1996 they were NOT dominant. He did the same thing Lewis did - went to a team that everybody said would be a huge mistake and helped build them up behind the scenes.

THIS bit of the Canada 2011 Rewind where his engineer gives him the strategy and he’s like “... OkaAaAaAay?” and then when it turns out to be the wrong strategy he cheerfully tells them it’s too late. Little shit.

Speaking of Mercedes I also wanna say that like. They were a MESS in 2012 and his car DNF’d because of a failing on their part MULTIPLE times. (In Canada qualifying his DRS was stuck open and they couldn’t close it.) He did not say a single bad word about them EVER even though the press used this to attack him non-stop as washed-up and bad without Ferrari to cheat for him. At Ferrari he was the exact same with the team, any bastard antics Schumi had for his rivals did not extend to the engineers and crew.

OK this one is soured bc Top Gear is trash BUT if you were like, a kid in England who followed motorsports? Schumi’s fake reveal as The Stig on Top Gear was like the coolest, sickest thing,

Please view this image of Schumi and Mika when they were young and stupid

Iconic Races

ok so I have limited myself to a few races that show off some of his key strengths!

Hungary 1998 / France 2004 - STRATEGY/SPEED - Schumi switched to a 3 stop strategy in 98 and a FOUR STOP strategy in 04 and won both races. In order for the strategy call to work he’d have to basically make every single lap a qualifying style ‘flying lap’ and you best fucking believe he DID THAT. God I fucking miss when Ferrari was the king of strategy.

Argentina 1998 - has it all. Talent, battling Mika, pit lane mind games with mclaren, and bullying coulthard xxx

Spain 1996 / a majority of the wet races - RAIN - One of Schumi’s nicknames was Rain Master bc he was so fucking good in the wet. If it started raining and you were a Schumi stan you were cackling evilly before the red lights even went out. I single out 1996 bc it was his first win for Ferrari and it was unexpected but in most wet races, even Canada 2011 post comeback, you can see Schumi thriving.

Malaysia 1999 - Schumi missed pretty much the entire second half of the season with a broken leg, came back for the last 2 races with everybody murmuring about whether he would struggle, and immediately put the Ferrari on pole. Also worth noting is that he was the number 2 driver for these 2 races bc his teammate Irvine was fighting Mika for the championship and he went along with that without complaint, allowing Ferrari to win the constructor’s championship if not the driver’s.

Monza 2002, 03, 04, or 06 just because it has the energy of the tifosi kneeling at the feet of an idol to their red god.

Brazil 2006 - Fuck All Y’all - Schumi’s last race for Ferrari. He got a puncture and ended up almost lapped, and then drove his way back from that to 4th bc he couldn’t go out without reminding us he’s a bad bitch.

Monza 2012 - Defending - Don’t tell F1 Twitter that there’s actual footage of Lewis and Michael having a genuine lengthy battle on track but DO watch Michael defending like a motherfucker and Lewis breathing down his neck for half the race we need to talk about this more.

Valencia 2012 - This isn’t necessarily anything special but I cried in my living room over the only podium of his comeback so it goes on here. It doesn’t have the same impact if you haven’t been watching him struggle with the car for years, DNF-ing from car failure most of 2012, and having BBC F1 telling you he’s washed up every single weekend, but you can just enjoy one of the best drives of FERNANDO’S entire career as he DRAGS that Ferrari by its hair to a home grand prix win and then watch the crowds embrace him like jesus and also Schumi being happy on the podium. Also, the very start of this clip from the press conference: him forgetting what language he’s supposed to be speaking

Basically, Schumi was a hyper-competitive ambitious bitch who turned into a goofball as soon as he switched the engine off. This is by NO MEANS everything if I was making an exhaustive best races guide I’d do more research and another post but I hope this is what you were looking for?? THANK YOU SO MUCH for letting me go MAXIMUM SPECIAL INTEREST and I apologize.

#asks #Schumi #Mika #Alonso #long post #god I'm so fucking sorry #Anonymous #This is not comprehensive bc I didn't want to accidentally turn this into a whole research project especially if you're new to it!

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loveafterthefact · 4 years ago

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Love After the Fact Chapter 56: Sex Education Part 1

In which Thace is medically certified to run a sex ed program and Keith is an unwilling pupil with a splash of Galran societal norms and pressures

Warning: Discussions of sex, but like, from a health perspective

First Previous Next

“Mnh?” Keith’s eyes flutter open, heart sinking at the empty space beside him. Straining his ears, he can’t hear his chosen mate. He’s alone. It’s an awful feeling, sudden, sharp. Before he even realizes it, he’s chirping, calling for Lance to come back.

Startled by the intensity of his reaction, Keith cliches his jaw, keening softly in his throat. He doesn’t want anyone thinking he’s in trouble. He feels like he's in trouble; he knows he's not. Curling tight into a ball, a purr starts thrumming deep in his throat, his body's attempt to soothe his distress.

“Keith?” A mercifully familiar scent reaches Keith’s nose. “Was that you, kitten?”

“Momma?” Hunkered down in the bed, Keith peeks his head from beneath the blankets. He’s behaving like a very young kit, he knows, but he can’t help it. He feels lost, alone, abandoned.

“Hey, kitten.” Krolia sinks down on the bed, running a hand over the top of his head. She’s wearing a shirt and pants instead of armor, accentuating her slight frame. Keith looks so much like his mother. He doesn't mind. “Lance asked me to come check on you. Said you had a hard night.”

He had had a hard night. He woke up twice with growing pains, an indication that he’s actually starting to grow. Still, there’s only one thing on his mind right now. “Where’s Lance?”

“The compound. Allura called for him. Something happened this morning; we don’t know what.”

“Is she okay?”

“All I know is that she spent the night with Romelle, then sequestered herself to her own room, asking for her brother.”

“I hope she’s alright.” Keith closes his eyes, allows his mother to continue petting his head. “Momma?”

“Yes, kitten?”

“What- What’s happening to me?” Krolia’s presence isn’t helping soothe his distress.

“If I had to guess?” She shifts her kit’s head into her lap, doing the best a mother can do. “You’re bonding to Lance. I know you haven’t mated, but you’re very close to maturity, and your attachment to him is strong.”

Keith gulps, detecting the edge in his mother’s voice. “Please don’t be mad.”

“No, kitten. I’m not mad. But you’re my baby, and the idea of you having no other choice than this hurts me.” A sigh. “Accepting any less than the best for you is hard.”

“I do have a choice. Lance has given me every choice he possibly can.” Keith knows his mother’s doubts. “I chose him because- because he cares. He cared about me before he even knew me. And he cares for our people and wants to learn more about them. You don’t even know him, Mom. Please give him a chance.”

“Alright, kitten. For you, I’ll give him a chance.” Krolia goes easily, not wanting to cause her kit any undue distress. He’s experiencing more than most thanks to his abnormal childhood and growth, and a barb of guilt creeps ever deeper into her chest. “We should take you back to Thace. I want to make sure your bonding process isn’t due to any developmental problems. Besides, you need an exam anyway. It’ll just be a bit earlier than usual.”

“Okay.”

At the clinic, Thace is only just getting his materials together to start the day. “Oh, hey guys. How are we doing this morning?”

“I’d like you to give him an examination,” Krolia murmurs. “His development appears abnormal.”

Thace frowns, normally cheerful face creasing with worry. “Abnormal? How so?”

“He-”

“I seem to be bonding to Lance,” Keith grits out, displeased at everyone making fuss and speaking for him. He really needs to learn how to advocate for himself. “Which would be totally fine, were I anyone else except myself.”

“No, it wouldn’t be,” Thace argues, scurrying around to gather a few supplies, wash his hands. “You’re at an extremely delicate point in your growth. Anyone experiencing early bonding should at least be interviewed, and anyone with a growth disorder should be examined. It might indicate abnormal physical or hormonal development.” He turns back to Krolia. “You are still his parent. How many chirps before I release him?”

“Twice, and you’re done. More than that, and I’ll-”

“Whatever you’re about to do, I’ll be fine. Advisor Krolia will go and inform Crown Prince Lancel of where I am.” Keith draws himself up, poised and formal. Pulling the prince card isn't something he enjoys, but it's the only thing that might possibly help him wriggle out from under his mother's coddling thumb. He loves her, looks up to her, but her coddling is damaging to his image.

He hates that he even has to think of such a thing.

The two both nod, even though his mother’s eyes narrow. He’ll take it. Only one person is allowed to coddle him, and he’s not here right now. Krolia heads off reluctantly, leaving Keith alone with Thace.

“What are you going to do?”

“Scans, blood, and then a visual and manual examination.”

“Examination of what?” Keith can guess, but he wants confirmation.

“Your genitalia. This examination is to assess your reproductive health.”

“... This is going to su-u-u-u-ck.”

“Yes, but it is important. For anyone, not just a prince.” Thace guides him into a dimly lit room with another scanner. There’s a reclined chair in the middle with footrests at the bottom and a spotlight above. Totally not ominous at all. “Before I was offered the emergency medic position here, I specialized in sexual health, with an emphasis on final growth development.

“If so many are going to push themselves to the limits of their reproductive capabilities, I might as well make sure there’s someone competent to look after them. For you, for our futures and the futures of our children, it would be an honor to make sure you are healthy and well.”

Thace helps him into the chair, types settings into a panel on the scanner. This one has an arm that hangs down, instead of rising from the floor. Keith bites his lip, staring at a probe on the counter. “But do you have to-”

“In your case, yes. Premature bonding isn’t rare exactly, but we still want to make sure there’s no underlying cause. It could just be that you really are that fond of Lance, or you could be having some kind of hormonal or anatomical complication.”

Awesome.

“Will it hurt?”

“I’ll have to stimulate certain nerves, so it will cause discomfort-” The scanner hums, the curved arm spinning around Keith. “That discomfort will be fleeting, and the very last part of the exam. After that, you’ll be all done… I will not harm you, Keith, nor do anything to damage you.”

Keith nods, trusting Thace to mean it. He’s a kind, gentle soul, one held in fond regard by all who meet him. Plus, Thace is a bearer with a mate and kits. This won’t be enjoyable for him either.

“How can you do this?” Keith asks, genuinely curious to know as he watches his friend clean a patch of skin at the crook of his elbow and tie a thick elastic band around his arm. He winces at the snap. “How do you conquer your instincts so you can touch me?”

“It was something I struggled with, to be sure, but having a defined purpose helps.” Thace pulls out a needle with a thin tube attached, and a few vials. “I'm one of fifteen siblings. When I was growing up, my parents taught me that it was my duty to find a mate and have as many kits as possible, starting with my first season. And that’s what I knew. It was fact. An incontrovertible truth. That was how I could serve the empire: ten years of service, and a kit every season until my body gave out.”

“So when I went to school to be a medic, and I learned how much strain our culture puts on bearers, and sires to a lesser extent, I was… horrified. Frightened. I didn’t want to waste away, or be left with no quality of life. I wanted my life. I wanted to have something for myself. I realized that, because I too am a person, I deserve the same as anyone else, regardless of my sex.”

Keith stares at the blood pouring into the vial. He can empathize with Thace. He feels the same pressure, has felt it ever since Shiro brought him to the mountain, felt it more and more since moving to Altea. It keeps him up at night, weighs heavy on his thoughts. The burden of other peoples’ expectations.

What if he can’t bear enough kits? Will Lance be disappointed in him? Will he still want him? Alteans don’t necessarily mate for life. He's well on his way to belonging to Lance forever. What if Lance can't give him the same? He sighs, stares at his blood pooling in another vial.

“I chose to deviate from my original plans. I left my chosen mate right before my first season, deciding she was too forceful and domineering given what I wanted for myself. I spent that first season alone at a friend’s den. Ulaz’ den, actually. He was unmated, but I trusted him to keep me safe, since I wasn’t his. He looked after me while I recovered my strength, and… I ended up staying.”

Thace removes the last vial and needle, rubs Keith’s skin with alcohol, wraps some gauze around his arm. He places the vials into a machine, typing in a series of commands. “I made the decision to study reproductive and sexual health. I wanted to do whatever I could to keep people healthy, even if they were putting so much strain on their bodies. Later, when Ulaz was stationed here as part of the Imperial guard, I elected to come with him. I put my life’s work on pause so our family could stay together and so we could complete our required service concurrently. When our service is completed, he will likely stay with the Blades, and I will go back to my work.

“While your tests are being done, we can do the rest. Then we’ll talk about the results… Prince Lancel should be here for that part. It will pertain to him as well.” The medic slips his hands under Keith’s shirt, prodding at his soft tissue. The younger Galra winces, discovering sensitivity he hadn’t realized he had.

“How?”

“Because he has absolutely no fucking clue what he’s doing, like most sires… Now, a common issue seen in Galra with growth disorders is that their mammaries don’t develop. I’m seeing that here. You've clearly got some sensitivity, but I'm not feeling anything as well-developed as I would expect... It’s not surprising, or concerning, but you won’t be able to nurse.”

“Oh.” Keith’s ears wilt. “Okay.”

“I know it’s disappointing for you, but from my perspective, it’s a good thing.” Thace smiles. “Your body does not have the resources to fully complete your final growth spurt. That’s just the facts. So what your body is doing instead is allocating resources where they’re needed most. It’s prioritizing child-bearing over nursing. That’s actually what I want to see in your case.”

“It’s not like Galra milk would be enough for my kits anyway. They’ll need formula to get the proper nutrition.” Hybrids nearly always do.

“They almost certainly will, since your biology and Lance’s are so very different. Your rather unsettling attendant has already tasked me with coming up with a few suggestions for formulas that might be suitable... Can you remove your pants, please?”

Keith removes his pants, reluctant and anxious, but knowing that this is something every kit endures during their final growth spurt. Thace gently nudges his knees apart, makes a soothing noise in the back of his throat as every muscle in Keith’s body instantly tenses.

“If I bite you-”

“I’m asking you to defy the basic instincts of our species. If you bite me, I’ll take no offense. I wouldn’t even call it even.”

For that, Keith clenches his jaw, muscles jittering beneath his skin, claws digging into the arms of the chair. He knows he doesn’t want to hurt Thace, even if his body wants it very, very badly. The medic touches him with a probe three times, once slipping inside, deftly reaching clusters of nerves Keith's always known he had, but never had use for. The probe vibrates, only for a tick, but it’s enough to have him yelping, hissing, ears pinned tight against his head. It hurts, has him baring his teeth at his friend.

“That’s it. We’re done.” Thace pulls a thin blanket over him, rubs his ear. “I’m so sorry, little one.”

Closing his legs, Keith hisses at the adult Galra again, painfully aware that he’s still not quite grown. Said adult Galra only persists in his ministrations, working at that ear until Keith’s settled. “I know, I know. I suck. I’m sorry.”

“You didn’t say you were sticking that thing inside me,” Keith grumbles.

“Would you still be sitting there if I had?” Thace raises an eyebrow at Keith’s scowl. “That’s why we don’t say it. Be lucky I didn’t have to check your prostate.”

“Not comforting, dude.” Keith snuggles under the blanket. “It’s gonna make it weird when we come over for dinner.”

“Only if you make it weird. For me, this is just work.”

"What do people normally say when they find out that you look at sex organs for a living?"

"Well, they never say thank you, that's for fucking sure. Ingrates." Thace goes back to the blood testing machine, scans the results. “Yes, I definitely need to speak to both of you. But while we wait for Prince Lancel to get here, there are some things we can talk about just us… Have you experienced any arousal? Erection? Vaginal secretions?”

“Not… exactly.” Keith shifts in the chair, remembering that kiss in the rain. “Maybe… a little?”

“What did you feel?”

“Like a tingle? Or maybe an ache?”

“Vaginal?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. So that’s also good. What that means is that your body is priming itself for the bearer role. Since your mate is male, we would expect the female parts of your reproductive system to respond automatically. If both, or your male parts responded, it might cause some concern.”

“This is… so much.”

“Yes, it is. You are a very complicated person, Keith. Inside and out.”

Keith nods, preoccupied. Teasing the end of his braid, he finds the courage to ask, “Why do you need to speak to Lance? Is something wrong?”

“No, not at all. But from your test results, I can tell that you are in the process of bonding, which is premature. There’s nothing wrong with your bloodwork or your scans, so I’m not worried, but it’s time to have those uncomfortable conversations.”

“This is already an ‘uncomfortable conversation’,” Keith bites, feeling a little petty. Okay, maybe more than a little. But he's more than earned it, so there.

“We need to have a serious discussion with him, make sure he understands all of this from a medical perspective.” Thace makes a few notes on a datapad. “So since you are priming for female reproductive behaviors, you may need to stimulate yourself manually if you wish to achieve an erection. You should be able to, and perform like any other male should you wish to. I’d like you to attempt that before leaving Daibazaal, even if not during coitus.”

“Seriously?” Keith rolls his eyes. That's just unnecessary.

“Seriously. To completion. Reproduction is complex, yours more so than most. It’s important to make sure everything is functioning properly. Besides, Lance might like it.”

“This is the worst conversation I’ve ever had. I just want you to know that.” Stupid Thace and his progressive attitude toward sex talks.

“Yes, I imagine it is. But important for your body and mind. And it’s important for Lance to learn, too, since he is already instrumental to your health and well-being.”

"I hate that you're right."

"That poor boy is in so far over his head. Wait until you have to explain gender identity to him."

"He needs to explain gender identity to me! Alteans are so. weird. You have no idea!" Keith curls up in the chair. "Apparently there's this thing where 'normal' people are either female women or male men, and then anyone who doesn't adhere to that is 'abnormal'."

Thace frowns, utterly baffled. "That's so... primitive. What's the correlation?"

"Not sure. Apparently, on Altea, there is one."

The adult Galra shakes his head. "His brain is going to short-circuit. Oh! I forgot to tell you!" Thace's face breaks into a grin. "My oldest, Mashan? A girl!"

"Hey, that's great!" Keith shares his friend's excitement. It's always a joy when a kit determines their gender.

"Yeah... Gods, I'm so proud of her. Fuck, Keith, before long, I'm gonna be chasing people away from her!"

"That's what you get for making cute kits. What's the phrase? Reap what you plant?"

"Reap what you sow. And that's so unfair, blaming me for passing on my hotness to my kits."

"They certainly don't get it from Ulaz."

Thace gasps, ready to rise to Keith's playful tease, when Lance arrives. He looks tired and sad. Eyes red, scales dull, pale-faced... It seems they're both having a difficult morning. Krolia stands just behind him, face studiously passive.

The Altean surveys the scene before him, eyes travelling about the room, lingering on Keith's pants rumpled on the floor.

"What, the fuck, is going on in here?"

It's going to be a long morning.

#LoveAftertheFact #LAtF #klance #galtean au #altean lance #galra keith #adashi #altean adam #galra shiro #voltron legendary defender #vld

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dumbladores · 5 years ago

Text

You - Teaser

Summary: Your brother and a girl with whom you’ve become friends with by sharing a home, are your flatmates. But since there was a room left, another person had joined in, and not just anyone, but the very Antoine Griezmann himself, who has decided to go back to university and check out the life he had missed while having a career. I intend to develop your relationship rather slowly (but not too slowly, don't be scared). I intend to have at least one little teasing per chapter, how many chapters there will be, I don't know, depends on your demand and how it develops on its own :)

I'll be posting one chapter at least every two weeks. Make sure you check out my Patreon, where you'll have access to more much sooner. I’m dedicating this to @xratedffbarbiex, who inspired that sudden urge to write, so please make sure to check out her Antoine-series as well.

English isn't my first language, so please have mercy with me.

Besides, I'm always happy about propositions or inspiration, so don't hesitate to contact me.

Cheers, guys, to the great community, we've got here!

Warnings: not yet

Part: 1/ ? Part 2 follows next week on my Patreon

Word count: 1756

One

Your brother and a girl with whom you’ve become friends with by sharing a home, were your flatmates. But since there was a room left, another person had joined in, and not just anyone, but the very Antoine Griezmann himself. Footballplayer since he was little, he had to give up his career due to an injury on his left knee. Since he had no family to look after, he had decided to go back to university, doing a little catching up on the life he had missed, as he had been a professional since a very young age.

You had been away when he was to have the “flat interview”, so you didn’t have any saying in the decision, it was anyway a two against one vote, since the others were absolutely enthusiastic about him. Of what you gathered from their statements, it was merely because it was, well, him. But they said he was nice, too. You rolled your eyes at that sentence. It was obvious the two had been taken by either his charm or his indeed very inviting physical features. Nevertheless the three of you made a pact to make every effort you could to make his life in (name of town) as normal as it could be and to trying to include him in as many common student activities there were.

You often had friends over. Cynthia and you already knew a bunch of people since it was your third semester, and (name of your brother) also quickly took part in that circle of friends.

It had been weeks since he moved in and yet it seemed he didn’t settle in easily. In videos you had seen of him, he seemed so playfully and easy to get along. But here he behaved rather shyly. He kept mostly to himself during the daytime, locking himself in his room. You only saw him once in a while in the kitchen and in the living room, where he watched football or basketball on a big flat screen he had bought to share with his flatmates, which made a big impression to the other two, but not so much on you. You weren’t to be bought so simply, especially not by someone who wasn’t paying much attention to other stuff you cared more about - for example looking someone in the eyes.

Of course, you had made a big deal out of that fact. You kept saying to Cynthia, what a prick you thought he was and how cocky he behaved. She just rolled her eyes and sayd you should give him some time.

In fact, your pride was a little tiny part of it. You couldn’t bare the thought he didn’t notice you, didn’t show interest in you. But you never in a thousand years would admit it. So you eagerly researched. You researched everthing about him. Where he was brought up, in which clubs he had played, you even watched interviews with him. He was Frances’ darling. Grizou, as they called him. A symbol, an idol for the country, who didn’t even trust in him when he had started his career. No club had wanted him, so he had to move to Spain when he was 14 years old. You couldn’t believe it. It sounded like he had a whole life behind him, now being only 29, he had experienced more than any other normal person at this age, And yet he hadn’t, as he was willing to go back to university to learn, what he had missed when he was out in this cruel world, that loves you at one moment and rejects you at the other. You watched some interviews with him. In most, in fact, he didn’t look the interviewer in the eyes. Most of them were filmed after a match, so you supposed, you couldn’t demand much of a player that just had run for one and a half hours. You certainly wouldn’t be able anymore to utter anything. In fact, you most certainly would be dead. But no, in other situations it was just the same. Also what he was saying didn’t have any profoundness or depth. Angrily you let go, coming to the conclusion there was nothing interesting in this guy, and particulary nothing interesting for you.

Weeks passed. He had invited your brother to play FIFA on his XBOX in his room, but never talked to you or Cynthia more than necessary. You hadn’t exchanged 10 sentences by the end of one month, and after a while you gave it up. He had a few pals from his classes that came over once in a while, and he even came home very late twice, so you guessed he took part in student social life by his own, being to partys and stuff, probably having made other interesting acquintances. You hadn’t made any effort to get him to notice you in any way, but you just stopped caring.

That’s why you missed that he indeed looked at you one or two times in the kitchen. That he started to look at you when you talked to Cynthia or your brother or other friends you had invited over. In fact, there were many movie nights you hosted since you had this big flat TV and other students couldn’t even afford a proper fridge. Antoine started to laugh at your jokes or when you were doing something silly to amuse the people. He, indeed, started watching you intensely. More intensely than the others.

You only came to notice his stare in exactly that moment you were telling a story a group of people in the kitchen at a movie night. You were preparing popcorn in the microwave and you just made a joke about how you had thought as a kid that popcorn didn’t have anything to do with actual corn and that you had made the discovery only recently, and it had been as if you had entered a whole new dimension in the matrix. You noticed his stare, Antoine was casually leaning at the kitchen counter, one hand in his sweatpants, the other on the beer bottle. Your face instantly turned red, at least that was what you felt - your cheeks caught fire and there was nothing you could do about it. You tried to finish your point and rushed down the story, leaving the rest of the group a little confused by that abrupt ending.

While the others moved to the living room with the popcorn, you poured yourself a large glass of wine and took a deep sip. You had almost made a fool of yourself, just because this handsome and cocky footballplayer had watched you. You had to be more careful with your thoughts. Didn’t you use to say you had standarts? But did your guts have standarts? You knew, your mind wanted someone smart and classy and interesting. So why did your stomach drop like several floors down at the sight of his stare?

“So we’re here drinking on our own, are we?”

You shrinked at the smooth voice behind you and quickly turned, just to see that it belonged to the guy you were thinking of a second ago. As if he knew he had caught you thinking of him, you blushed again.

“Just making sure the wine’s okay”, you managed to answer and, in a manner you thought to be both ironic and casual, you took another sip from your glass.

“Hmm, may I?”, Griezmann said and reached out for your glass. He took a sip, pointed his lips in an hilarious way and swallowed. “Oh, not bad. Not bad at all. I presume it is dated by the time of Louis XIV himself, for it makes the sun shine on your face.”

You snorted with laughter. “Is this a quote from Shakespeare or something or did you just come up with that yourself?”

With a smirk on his perfect face, he handed you back your glass. “Which possibility would make you think higher of me? Probably the quote, as you’re constantly reading. And what’s your subject again? Philosophy?”

“It is”, you admitted. “But I embrace far more an original new thought, because it’s proof of creativity and independance of thought.”

“Really? I thought you dind’t like new things?”

You blinked. “How come you think that lowly of me?”, you asked and took another nervous sip out of your glass, while you intended it to look casually. He couldn’t be implying your aversion against the new TV or even himself? He couldn’t be that observing, could he? Or was it you that were so blind?

He grinned and watched you thoroughly. “I’m sorry. Maybe I drew the wrong conclusion.”

Now you were angry. Stupid boy, thought he could mock you, while in fact he was the ridicule.

“Maybe I’m just taking my time to judge”, you snapped. “And allowing myself to exclude new things from my life, if I regard them as being intrusive and un...conductive.” Without looking at him you walked past him into the living room, where the movie was already on. You squeezed yourself on the sofa next to Cynthia and tried to look at Orson Welles in “The third man”.

So it hadn’t just been you thinking low of Griezmann. It was him thinking low of you. And if he was thinking low of you, and you thinking low of him, that in fact made you a lot lower than him. A correct philosophical conclusion. 100 percent on that test, you congratulated yourself. But logic wasn’t helpful in that moment.

You looked at the entrance to the kitchen, where Griezmann stood leaning against the door frame, his eyes on the screen.

#antoine griezmann imagine #antoine griezmann one shot #antione griezman fanfic #antoine griezmann x reader #antoine griezmann x OC #football imagine

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ill-will-editions · 5 years ago

Photo

Against Pandemic Capitalism. An Interview with Milan’s Emergency Volunteer Brigades

Interview conducted March 21, 2020.

1. How are you all? Are you managing to keep in touch virtually? Are you still managing to exist as a "group" or to keep to a "common position" despite the isolation?

We are fine. The situation here in Milan has been building into a crescendo. After February 23rd, there were weeks of uncertainty, during which there were contradictory orders from the government. During the first week the government closed some businesses, then they reopened them; later the awareness of the epidemic grew, and the more drastic measures were then applied. Now that everyone is pretty much isolated, although we are keeping in touch with each other frequently, it is more complicated to come up with common positions and to exist as a group. At the same time, various communication channels and types of reflection and action have opened up, yes. Some of us have focused more on the conditions in prisons, while others are engaged in translating or sharing thoughts. Some others converged in the local Solidarity Brigades, and others are looking for more contacts with comrades abroad to have a broader picture of the situation.

At the beginning everyone had their own perception of things; there were those who panicked and those who claimed that it was yet another way to instill fear in the population, since in any case politicians and medical experts seemed to espouse different opinions. From the governor of Lombardy, who published a selfie video locked in his house with a mask, to the mayor of Milan, who made a video entitled #milanononsiferma (#milanwillnotclose), in which he tries to show that the hyperproductive city would keep going; to virologists, who were insulting each other on various TV programs. Then the number of infected increased and the red zone was extended from Codogno (where the so-called “patient zero” was found) to the whole of Lombardy. People started to develop a different perception of risk: by that point, we all knew someone who had been infected. As I mentioned, nobody had really understood what was happening and we continued our everyday collective routines (collective football training, meetings, assemblies, and so on). From March 9th, the government took a unified national approach; the red zone was extended across the whole of Italy. Orders were given not to leave the house, unless you had a certificate provided by the authorities. The restrictions have been very strict: an evening curfew begins at 6pm is in place. Since then, all of Italy has been “online”.

Many initiatives were born, from tutorials about how to defend against COVID-19, to new radio and streaming sites, meetings (especially on Zoom) filled with people who often have never even met, some from all over the world. The absurdity of it is that we are experiencing a more conscious use of our devices. While before we perceived them as instruments of alienation and distraction, we now use them better as ways of sharing knowledge.

As for our group, we had been facing a period of great fragmentation. Ironically, the work of the brigades and the presence of a common but invisible enemy now involves everyone, since we are all touched by the same problem.

2. What is the situation in working-class neighbourhoods? How are the cops and the army behaving? In Milan, as we know, the police are generally very aggressive, but their attitude can change according to zone, acting civil enough and "teacherly" in more well-to-do neighbourhoods, and with the arrogant and violent "colonizing" approach in more working-class neighbourhoods.

The situation in the working-class districts of Milan changes depending on the area. In the densely-populated areas, filled with small and overcrowded houses, and mainly inhabited by foreigners, life continues to take place in the streets. Walking around in neighbourhoods like Giambellino or via Padova, you might see smaller food shops still open, creating spaces to meet for people who seem unconcerned with the directions issued by the authorities to stay at home. The police patrol the streets, but not in an overly dominating fashion, mostly trying to limit these numerous gatherings. The army was already present in some areas with an anti-terrorist function. Since the 23rd of March we've seen their number increasing and they have begun to patrol as public officials with the possibility of stopping and asking for documents or ID. It seems that for now, they don’t seem particularly comfortable in this role, showing a certain reluctance in being aggressive. In neighbourhoods where the presence of the police is usually regarded with hostility, the discouragement of gatherings and “dangerous” kinds of behaviour becomes difficult to put into practice.

Other working-class neighbourhoods on the outskirts, where people normally only go home to sleep, seem deserted. After the closing of the shops inside the shopping centres (the only places in these areas where social life takes place), life has died out, and everyone hides in their own apartments. In the last few days, media-induced fears of the dangers of walking and doing sports in parks have spread, with people looking out from their balconies and railing against neighbours who go out to take a walk in the yard, or even call the police.

And it’s obvious that the slogan #iorestoacasa (#Istayathome) is not considered relevant to everyone. Those who can afford to pay rent and have a job are locked in their homes, doing online shopping, while the rest of the population, either precarious or unemployed, working in logistics or infrastructure, experience a quite different situation. A very wide gap between the classes has opened. Confindustria (General Confederation of Italian Industry) forced workers to keep on working in factories without any health and safety precautions.

So in working-class neighbourhoods, many people are continuing to work. The increase of police and military in the streets is considerable but there isn’t a huge gap between neighborhoods: they are simply everywhere. We are seeing another phenomenon too, which is the becoming-policemen of normal citizens, which is perhaps stronger in bourgeois residential areas: there have been many episodes of people denouncing others to the police, or just people shouting “Go home!” to people walking in the street. Those who have been most affected by these severe measures have been homeless people and migrants.

3. How do the volunteer Brigades work? How do you handle the relationship between institutions (the state, local council, NGOs…)? How do you train those who participate? Where did the idea originate? How many people are involved? Are you trying to extend the idea to the whole of Italy?

The Brigades were born out of an idea that circulated as word of mouth on social media and it quickly became viral. The idea which came out of it is that we can obviously talk about who are responsible for all this, and they will have to pay the consequences, but in our current situation in which there is a diffuse sense of fear among people, we have to look out for the community, especially those of us who have experience with many different forms of organization, since we have learned in these years to manage with “extreme” situations, to act with courage, for the sake of everyone. We were inspired by several examples of mutual aid and organizations which worked throughout Italy after the earthquakes in the center of Italy (in the 2000s).

We understood pretty quickly that this situation was much larger than us, and that it wouldn’t be sufficient to do things autonomously or even on the national level, so that we would be vulnerable from multiple sides, especially vis-a-vis repression. If you’re found out of your house without any particular reason they can sanction you.

We looked for an organization that could give us the possibility of having an official status, and found Emergency, the humanitarian organization which provides aid in war situations and which has its offices in Milan. Through this we were able to construct an infrastructure which legitimates us and which mediates between us and the Milan local council. In the same way that we created the “Brigades” through our personal involvement, which began from social media and word-of-mouth, we also found individuals for each area to coordinate the groups. This structure has organized training sessions, first of all for the group leaders, who in turn started training the people in their own groups. The structure also allowed us to have passes in order to be able to move around the city freely. Currently we have more than 200 volunteers and many people on the waiting list to be trained and many others who continue to write saying that they would like to join. We are managing to cover all the 9 districts of Milan and the calls are increasing daily. In some areas we are connected to social centers or self-organized spaces which make up the base of the Brigades.

Our structures are being tested daily but it is still small and spread out, and we are being contacted by people from other parts of Italy who are beginning to organize themselves in the same way. Our goal is to create an infrastructure across the whole of Italy.

4. Can you update us on the situation in the prisons? Are there ways to stay in contact with people inside? (Here they gave a “bonus” of €40 for every inmate, which allow them to make more phone calls, and they gave free TV access to everyone, hoping in this way to placate unrest)

After the riots, and the deaths in prison, and the first case of Covid-19 in the Voghera prison, the “Cura Italia” (“Heal Italy”) decree established new orders on how to confront the pandemic in penitentiary institutions: house arrest and electronic tags for those serving less than 18 months; those under 6 months and minors are to be directly sent home, without tags.

Beyond this, it was established that those accused of having participated in the revolts of March 9th/10th will not be allowed to benefit from these alternative measures. Following the protests many sections were destroyed, and for this reason there has been a decrease of 2000 prison places, due to works that have to be carried out immediately.

News reached us (from allies and family members) of many reprisals in the Opera prison: the inmates report going hungry and fearing for themselves, they describe being denied TV, food, showers, phone calls; having only half an hour of air, and being beaten, hands and bones broken; “riot police entered the cells and beat us up in the dark”; the guards took away cooking materials and gave the inmates only water and cigarettes.

After the events of March many inmates were separated in order to put down the unrest; this was the case in Ferrara and Alessandria; 60 inmates in Melfi, 500 in Modena, 107 in Foggia, and 60 in Naples, were transported on a military boat belonging to the Italian navy to the correctional facility on the island of Procida; 650 from Poggioreale were separated and put into different jails in Brindisi, Messina, Bari, Lagonegro, Melfi, Potenza and Reggio Calabria.

Day after day the numbers of guards and inmates infected and testing positive increases.

At this link you can find the account of Nicoletta Dosio on the situation in the prison of Vallette in Turin here [in Italian].

5. Do you have any advice on how to manage – emotionally, psychologically – the fact of having to stay inside all the time? Here it is only the third day and many are still experiencing it almost as though it were a game. What are your reflections after ten days?

The first thing we believe is important is not to allow oneself to be infantilized, but to assume responsibility. Despite the state wanting the former, it is important to understand that this situation concerns us all, our loved ones, and the more vulnerable members of our society both on the social and physical level. Staying inside all the time with this awareness can really notably help our sense of self-discipline. Moreover, moments like these, which people who have experienced house arrests know well, are moments to keep oneself occupied to the utmost. It is almost redundant to say: study, train, reflect. In the end I maintain that it is important to treat it as a kind of “suspended time” when we can finally concentrate on our collective strategies (or the lack of these), also in the light of recent events, without the stress or the lack of time caused by the frenetic pace of our normal daily routines (work, militancy, etc.)

At first it seems like a game, especially for the many of us who have for a long time been trying to flee hyper-productivity. We have found ourselves obviously amused by the hysteria of people, who in the first hours became enraged at supermarkets and shops who sold face masks. Added to this is the sensation of living in an episode of Black Mirror – the streets are empty and the few people on the streets are walking around with masks on.

At first we passed the time reading, discovering things on the internet or having dinners restricted to a small number of friends, where obviously the main theme of discussion was the virus. Slowly as the days passed we began to understand the seriousness of what was happening: people are now all stuck at home and our contact with the outside world has been reduced to three or four people, which is, the people we were always in contact with. Further contact was avoided for good reason, and those with family over a certain age stopped all contact with others. For now, on the emotional and psychological level we keep struggling, perhaps because the Brigades give a practical sense to these days, and also because we are seeing the exasperating effects of the virus on capitalism: people fighting outside supermarkets in queues, or because social distancing is not being kept up, or other kinds of unrestrained egotism.

At this point the question has a global importance and we have the possibility to turn this into a potential and to grow the network we have been building for years, though, on the other hand, power also has this potential. It is not incidental that in these days we have been able to have virtual assemblies with comrades from many different places, where we have been able to discuss the experience of the Brigades.

The idea is that when our methods will have been tested a little we will also be able to go further than just helping out those who need it most. Maybe one day on the streets there will only be the brigades and the police and this could be an interesting scenario. We have to consider however that the state and global capitalism are using this moment as a kind of experiment on a massive scale and we cannot underestimate this; we have to remain attentive and to study the movements of power to try to understand what will happen afterwards. Perhaps certain things could enter into the daily lives of people, for example this question of sociality and work. The experiment that is happening is moving on different levels; from the repression of those who leave the house to “tele-working”, the many working from home. Schools are continuing to conduct courses online, thus in part people at home are being employed to ��produce” in a new way.

Further, the virus, being immaterial and invisible, seems insurmountable and so it legitimates the state even more to project a voice that everyone necessarily listens to, keeping us all suspended since no one has any idea when this will end. There is an extreme pressure exerted upon individual responsibility so as to move away from all kind of social tension which might allow a realization of who the real people responsible for this are.

It’s a strange feeling leaving the house alone to go to the supermarket. Even if people don’t talk to one another, many people exchange complicit looks, since we all now have this in common, even if we’ve never known these people as friends, in the sense that they’ve never been this side of the barricade. This should make us reflect. We have to remain immersed in this situation and be strong in order to turn the situation in the right direction when the time comes.

6. Given that protests, demonstrations, and street presence are now impossible, what are ways of maintaining pressure on the authorities, in order to give voice to objections to the discourse that says “let’s save the economy at all costs”?

In this respect the most combative elements have been the militant unions such as SI COBAS (a small communist union operating on the national level), which are also the most directly involved given that, as we said, the majority of factories remain open undisturbed, in flagrant disregard of all the warnings to stay at home. So the voice of opposition has for now been principally represented by strikes, in which however, most of us don’t have the occasion to physically participate. The situation in prisons is different; groups of comrades are trying to get organised even if also here the difficulties are not at all few. After the first wave of protests in prisons, protests are continuing but they have been repressed with impunity, and the main task now is getting news out from inside, and to circulate it as much as possible.

We have to take account of people’s emotional reactions to what is happening, and acknowledge those people who have lost a relative or loved one to the virus. It’s difficult to imagine a movement exploding as yet, in this context. On top of this there is the fact that in Italy over the last years movements have suffered many setbacks and steps backward in terms of confronting power, and there is no united front, nor strong position from which to begin. Everything is very fragmented and so what we manage to bring forwards in struggle is a reflection of this pacification.

One practical example was the 8th of March – the global trans-feminist strike. Already being in the period of the quarantine we had to think what actions people could do. Hundreds of initiatives came about around the city; a new radio program, and many actions, from banners and posters, to writing, to whatever other form of protest which allowed people to feel involved. But nothing that meant direct conflict.

It’s moreover clear that contradictions have emerged; from one side the politicians who have made many gross errors, the public health system which is falling apart (as a result of the cuts over the last years), the fact of the middle class being at home, while delivery workers are in the streets delivering food, Confindustria deciding not to close down production and the larger unions which are playing around, the logistics workers who continue to work without any safety measures, the workers with unprotected faces who are risking their lives; on the other side, the campaign emphasizing individual responsibility of #iorestoacasa (#Istayathome) which is, of course, a way of concealing the truth of the situation.

Anger is coming to the surface, the autonomous unions have begun their strikes and are distributing provisions and masks to those in need, trying to impose a stop on production; the precarious workers have opened disputes in the hope of obtaining an income during the quarantine; and people are making appeals trying to stop online shopping because it puts those people who are making the deliveries at risk. The workers at the Amazon offices in Milan went on strike. As yet it hasn’t been possible to construct a strong position on how to give a positive sense to economic failure. 25 million unemployed people are expected once this is all over, and fear is high. For now it is very difficult but we think that with the work of the brigades it will be possible to construct a strong common position.

7. Have you noticed any new forms of solidarity among generations and in neighborhoods? What’s happening out of town? Do you have any updates from comrades in the countryside?

Our comrades living in the countryside describe a much quieter picture, free from the anxiety about contagion that one feels in the city. It’s easier for people to move around because controls are limited. You can buy food and any kind of “essentials” without difficulty, and farms that are still operating still receive the supplies they need. They’re dealing with labour shortages though.

8. Have there been moments of panic, people fleeing from big cities? Leaving Northern Italy to go south? (We had a huge flow of "bourgeois" migration here. Many people have left to be isolation in more comfortable conditions in their countryside or seaside holiday home – thus threatening remote areas, typically inhabited by the elderly, with the risk of contagion)

Yes, panic broke out on the evening of March 8th. A lot of people took trains from Milan and left Lombardy. All because of leaked news about the government's decision to isolate the region. Obviously, having hundreds of people crammed into a train certainly didn’t help prevent the virus from leaving Lombardy. Sure enough it had the opposite effect, leading to an increasingly higher number of infected people in Southern Italy in the following days. This kind of panic-induced internal migration continued for some days, with such intensity that some Southern regions decided to close their borders. At the beginning many people perceived the quarantine as a holiday, rushing towards ski slopes, beach resorts and second homes.

Yes, as I said, it has been a crescendo. In Northern Italy, for example, the start of quarantine took place when lots of people were on holidays, so many were stuck in the mountains or in their country houses. We witnessed great panic when the government decided to quarantine the whole of Lombardy – creating the so-called “red zone”. When the news came out, there was an exodus. Southern people who work or study in the North traveled back home en masse. This was a totally irresponsible thing to do, insofar as they risked bringing the virus to other areas, especially since young people can be healthy carriers with often no symptoms at all. The sheer selfishness of this gesture brought out all the counter-revolutionary power of the Italian family.

9. How does the contrast between the North and South feel now? Can we say that the tables have turned regarding the famous "Southern question"? Any thoughts?

This is not about the classic, even ironized, North-South opposition. The issue must be considered in relation to the different healthcare systems. Of course, we are not happy that the crisis broke out in the region where we live. Still, Lombardy is the richest region, with the best healthcare system in Italy and probably Europe (despite a succession of administrations cutting its budget). So we can be kind of relieved that it happened here. The Southern healthcare system has many more issues. Some problems are related to the staff, but the biggest issue is the inadequacy of infrastructure. A crisis like the one we’re having in the North would probably have brought the South to its knees.

In the last few days, the number of new patients in other regions – mostly Puglia and Campania, respectively South and Central Italy – has been increasing. We don’t really know how they’re facing the crisis (I mean, whether there is a network of mutual aid organizations and how they work), we’d need to ask people and healthcare personnel in those areas to get a better picture of it.

Some friends and relatives told us they’re very afraid, as though the epidemic had broken out there, as though Bergamo were a Southern city, so they respect the "safety" measures carefully. I don't think we can say the tables have turned on the "Southern question”. Many thought they could get away with leaving the North and going back home as soon as the lockdown was imposed – they proved to be very selfish and harmful to those who had a chance not to be as affected by the epidemic. Because of this grave error we risk having ten Codognos instead of one. People who left the red zones are likely to infect relatives in isolated areas.

There is still a great economic and social divide between the North and the South, we know that pretty well. In Sicily, in Calabria or in Basilicata, people are very aware that hospitals do not have adequate means and tools to face this kind of emergency. As long as people have to stay at home it will be impossible to discuss these issues – we’ll probably have to wait until everything is over.

The North is the new South! Or not. Originally, the North of Italy (great center of production on an international scale) was floored by the epidemic and showed its weaknesses. It became the laughingstock of countries all around the world – nobody accepted tourists or travelers from Northern Italy. A great blow that hurt the pride of the colonizers, who had always been free to roam around the world. For once they found themselves on the ‘not welcome’ list. Obviously the North-South relationship in Italy has changed and become an object of humor. But what is actually very worrying is that the healthcare system in Lombardy, which is despite all one the most efficient in the country, is collapsing. So if the virus were to reach the South, the situation would be truly dramatic.

10. What is the general feeling about what the government is doing? Is it considered partly responsible for the situation, or are its efforts to face the crisis appreciated?

For what our perceptions are worth, the government is generally receiving good support from the people. Prime Minister Conte is considered a wise politician, and the fact that Italy acted immediately and firmly made people forget many doubts they had at the beginning. In fact, until the first weeks of March, most Northern politicians were pressured by business leaders into keeping the borders open and letting Milan run at full capacity. Moreover, the government has taken strong measures concerning healthcare and movement of goods and people, but gave in to the pressure of Confindustria. So big cities are under great restrictions, whereas in the rest of the region industries and businesses, even the non-essential ones, continue their activities adopting only laughable safety measures. No decision has been made on the issue of overcrowded prisons, despite many judges and courts asking for new policies. But people have become more aware of the situation – the current climate of emergency makes everyone more sensitive, even past the issue of hospital capacity. The stern but inspiring campaigns in favor of prisoners have moved many people as well. We should consider in this respect the old nationalist cliché about Italians selflessly coming together during hard times to fight for the community, which has resurfaced in this situation. “Sovereignist” leaders like Salvini and Meloni, surprisingly, are at the moment managing to act under the radar. Their beloved game of finding someone else to blame for every single problem and identifying an enemy cannot be played so easily in times when there are these appeals to unity, so they’re clutching at straws. The feeling is that they’re preparing for the aftermath, when the emergency will be over and we’ll have to rebuild everything from the ground up.

As I said, the situation is controversial. At first the government made some incredible mistakes, and revealed that it wasn’t able to respond to this emergency adequately. We’ve seen this in every crisis that affected the country in the last decades, from the earthquakes in central Italy to the collapse of the Morandi bridge in Genoa. There are many issues we have to deal with, most importantly budget cuts to the healthcare system and the lack of protections for logistics workers. We are talking about people dying here not because they are crushed by a crane, but because they are attacked by a virus, which actually affects everyone without distinction. People are therefore intensely focused on the issue but are “waiting for instructions from above".

Many political collectives have highlighted the link between the capitalist system and the virus, and how it is transmitted. But for the time being, unfortunately, this is all talk, with a kind of academic character, especially given that we can’t even leave our homes.

11. How are people reacting to the plans for generalized digital surveillance (as already implemented in Israel or Iran)? Is it perceived as a "necessary evil"? Are there any ideas to counter these policies? Is the issue being addressed or is the health crisis preventing it?

So far it is not being addressed that much, certainly not at the level of general public opinion. As far as activist groups are concerned, it’s a bit complicated because the debate is now quite mixed up. From the beginning, philosopher Giorgio Agamben focused on the measures relating to the “state of exception”, and their possible consequences. Maybe he did so with a certain smugness and without caring too much about being understood correctly, so he was accused of minimizing the health crisis. The result is that now most of the comrades have slipped into a somewhat sterile debate between supporters and critics of the imposition of the state of exception. The critics accuse the supporters of being too abstract in front of real emergencies such as safety conditions in factories or prisons. As a result, it’s not easy to focus on the whole picture and avoid ideological squabbles.

We can talk about what has been happening in the last weeks. On March 19th, AgCom (national regulatory authorities for Italian communication industries) issued a press release asking social networks like Youtube, Facebook and Twitter to remove videos reporting false information or information from unreliable sources. It is the first time in Italy since 1948 that some fundamental freedoms, such as the freedom of movement, of assembly, and of expression, have been suspended. We will witness the effects of this measure in the upcoming days. The risk is that, the state taking advantage of an "emergency" situation, we could emerge from the catastrophe in much worse cultural conditions than when we entered it.

Personally, I’m very worried about this question. Many people are working from home and online 24/7, and are wondering about the future of our society. We fear that our movements will be GPS-tracked to check who is respecting the quarantine and who is not. On the other hand, many people see this situation as a positive change for the environment – since traffic has slowed, we experienced a significant decrease in air pollution, which is a major issue in Milan. So many now believe that this could also solve other problems. For the time being we need our devices to remain connected, but this situation will certainly have a significant impact on our lives.

12. What’s the general opinion on how other countries are approaching the situation? Were people angry at the thoughtlessness of countries still untouched by the pandemic?

Surely one of the most widespread feelings is disbelief and amazement. Italy had watched from afar the Chinese government dealing with the pandemic, a country that seems far away but is of course not so distant in our globalized world. However, we can’t understand how it is possible that European countries did not act as soon as they sensed what was happening in Italy. The example was there, before everyone's eyes, even sometimes just a few kilometers away. This highlights once again the inadequacy of our leaders as well as our lack of preparation, awareness and independent sources of information.

Anti-European and Eurosceptic feelings are as always resurfacing. Some see the EU as a mindless bloodsucker that refuses to support Italy during this emergency. The best thing is probably the general discredit that people like Trump or Boris Johnson are suffering. In the midst of the crisis, their bullshit now sounds dangerous and crazy even to those who previously admired them as strong and charismatic leaders.

This is significant. We were very angry at first, when we couldn't understand why they kept the information about when the virus first appeared concealed. Many people were disappointed in how Germany and England responded to this emergency. There’s also fear that if the pandemic breaks out in a serious way in the US, a huge number of people will die as a result of the private healthcare system. The only positive news we saw was that Bolsonaro came into contact with someone infected with Covid-19. That could save many more lives! However, at the moment, attention remains focused on our country, with 900 deaths per day and new outbreaks.

13. Can you imagine things on a longer scale? Do you think it’s possible to predict how things will be in the longer term? It almost seems like there will be no return to normality. What do you think will happen in the next few months?

It's hard to say. It’s very difficult to make predictions while all these different newspapers and media throw news at us. It’s hard to reflect while isolated. Everyone knows that the more you stay at home, the less fresh air gets to your head. One day we experience pessimism and the next day hope, or at least you see new chances for some unexpected turn of events. Surely the months to come will be harder and harder. We’ll have to be ready to go out again and see how this situation has changed things. But how they will have changed, as I said, is impossible for us to know.

It's hard to imagine what will happen now because we don't know how long the lockdown will last. The whole world will change for sure. It's also difficult to express “cynical” or critical ideas as many people are very sensitive about the pandemic. Some issues will be affected – the Mediterranean geopolitical scenario, Italy’s alliance with China for the new ‘silk road’ in Africa, the war in Syria that brings millions of migrants to Europe. It is no coincidence that borders are now closed all over the world, this seems to us as well to be a form of experimentation. 10 years ago we were studying the NATO Urban Operations in the Year 2020 report, and now here we are.

An interesting scenario could open up for us. We spent years traveling the world to build networks wherever people tried to confront the government, often getting in trouble with local authorities. Now we are experiencing a worldwide scenario that unites us all, especially in the West. We have the opportunity to create a common model that can apply to many places in the world. Once the emergency is over, that can legitimize us to speak up against those who have created these problems. For the time being, we can’t say what our next steps will be. We know that some activist groups from all over the country are planning to mobilize, inspired by the Volunteer Brigades. In order to create a common trajectory, we will need to connect with this broader viewpoint.

#COVID19 #Italy #solidarity brigades #mutual aid

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suffering-and-happy-about-it · 5 years ago

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WhatsApp? Part 1. (Steve Rogers x reader)

Description: You've never been lucky with guys. You just wanted to catch someone's eye, to be loved. One day, that's about to turn completely - with one fake, completely imagined number a guy gave you.

A/N: It's three a.m. here ok? As always, I can't sleep for shit. And I'm really productive. This idea popped up randomly during listening to one Czech rap song. Oh, shoot, I know. Just enjoy okay?

Warnings: None for now. ;) Some arguing Bucky and Sam and gentleman Steve.

Word count: 2 K

Tagging: @missdictatorme

Series masterlist: H E R E

You couldn’t believe it.

You talked to a guy who was nice, handsome and really well mannered. You were on cloud nine when he wrote his number down and gave it to you with a little bitting his bottom lip.

Little did you know that that guy was a total a-hole. The worst kind of them. He and his fellas just made that freaking number up; and he bit his lip because he holding his laugh, not to appear sexy at all.

But it lined up. The number was reserved for New York. So you were convinced that you got one guy to go to date with and have a nice time. And your friends were totally thrilled when you told them. Literally, no-one could believe it; you were gorgeous in your own way, you were nice but… So naive at times. But now? You have nailed it. You got to score.

And maybe you’ll score with the guy eventually?

That’s what you told to yourself in the morning, sitting on the edge of your bed, writing that number down to add it into your contacts. You almost fell off the bed when a strange name appeared in your WhatsApp contacts.

You didn’t recall him being Steve, but that was alright. You just edited his name in your contacts. Maybe you overheard him yesterday at the club? You tried to study his photo - it was a huge dog, Bernardine you assumed, catching a frisbee with his mouth. You awed. Was that Steve’s dog? Damn, that was cute as hell.

You looked at the name and quote he chose to describe himself on WhatsApp. Steven Rogers: Your patience is the most important thing you have. Don’t lose it. It can bring you great things.

You were in slight awe again - he seemed to be wise and smart. Which only went hand in hand with his good looks you remembered.

Y/N: Hey, handsome. How was the night? Doesn’t your head hurt too much?

You typed with excitement in your moves and then you put your phone down. You were sure that Steve will not text back soon. Only if you knew that you have woken up and completely confused a strange guy on the other end of the line.

———

Steve hummed into his pillow as his phone vibrated on the nightstand he had next to his small bed. He liked to keep thing simple - a small flat with two bedrooms, a kitchen combined with a living room and a small bathroom. It looked exactly how would you expected guy’s nest to look - always a bit messy and it barely felt like home. It needed a woman’s hand badly.

He decided to share his flat with Sam in order not to feel so alone in his flat in Brooklyn. As time passed, they bought a bigger sofa for Bucky. There was three of them living together when any mission was occurring. Steve loved his little place.

Steve searched for his phone with his eyes completely shut. He finally managed to get some sleep after some sleepless nights only to be woken up with a WhatsApp message? Was Tony fucking with him again? It was hardly 8 a.m. But dear God - it wasn’t Tony. It was a completely strange number which popped up and starting a new conversation, having box directly above the Avengers text group.

Steve slowly sat up and frowned.

X: Hey, handsome. How was the night? Doesn’t your head hurt too much?

His first instinct was to block that someone and ho back to sleep. But something temped him to text back. So he went for it. Steve Rogers answered a strange text.

Steve: The night has been pretty good. I slept like a baby, maybe a bit better. My head doesn’t ache, should it? Who am I texting with anyway?

He was proud of himself. That was a huge move forward from a guy that barely could use Google. Tony will be out of his mind when Steve is going to tell him about this. He could text back to a strange person. That excited him.

He waited for a bit, silently listening if the person texts back. There was a silence for ten long minutes; then Steve got up and went to the bathroom. It was a delight to be first in there. Sam took a hilarious time in the room and Bucky always left long brown hair behind him. Using a clean bathroom was a special thing in this flat. And Steve was not willing to let that slide.

The shower was quick, he showered every morning and every evening. Sam always made fun of him being a princess obsessed with his looks. That made him always chuckle. The rest was fast - quick shaving to keep his beard completely under control, a quick brushing of his teeth and then he slicked his hair on its place. It was getting too long - so he knew he would have to visit barber any time soon.

After that, he silently sneaked through the living room, trying not to wake Bucky up from his beauty sleep. He had plenty of time to make breakfast for his fellas. That was his concern until the phone vibrated again. Steve opened the text slowly, expecting everything from it.

He expected a message from an obsessed fan, he expected that that text was only a mistake and that that person clarifies that soon after. Steve embraced himself and prepared himself for seeing something Sam called a ‘nude’, which should be an image of someone’s naked body to please the second side of the conversation.

But it was none of that. It was a normal text and Steve even felt some insecurity from it.

X: Sorry, I can be so dumb sometimes. Lol. My name’s Y/N, we met by the bar yesterday? Did you tell me about the stars? Remember?

Okay, then it was Steve’s time to panic. She had probably mistaken his number with his own. What for god’s sake should he do? What should he text back to that lady? Steve calmed down a bit shrugging his shoulders.

Just as Steve wondered what should he answer, one of his best friends (Sam) walked down the kitchen with his primadonna manoeuvres, looking like a piece of shit.

“I heard that you are making some breakfast,” - Sam sat down on one of the chairs, looking Cap himself down with a playful look. Steve just let it be, watching him, trying to form a question in his head. - “I hope that you will leave some for yo boy Sammy.”

“Stop playing around, Sam. I need advice.” - Steve answered in a firm tone, letting the thing for preparing that delicious breakfast be as they are and sitting opposite to Sam.

“I am a bit overwhelmed that someone like you need help from someone like me.” - Sam playfully wiggled his eyebrows. - “Okay, what do you need, Cap?”

“So, I got a text message from someone this morning,” - Steve started to explain and ignored Sams grinning face. He was implementing much more into the situation than what actually happened. - “And I don’t have a single idea what should I answer that person. Are you willing to help me?” - Steve asked shyly.

“Okay, Iceberg. What’s the issue?” - Sam leaned his elbows into the kitchen table and once he had a very serious expression.

“It is a girl. A miss is more on point I guess. She wrote to me that we have… Met. But I don’t recall that. She must’ve met someone different and then misspelt his number.” - Steve recapped most quickly and Sam hummed, quietly offering Steve that he will read her texts. He let him do that.

“Okay Cap. Are we sure it isn’t some crazy-ass woman fangirl? Like one hundred percent sure?” - Sam looked him in the face and gave him his phone back.

“My fan mail of this sort looks way different. I’ve seen things, Sam. She just seems to be clueless.” - Steve sighed.

“Yeah, I’m getting that vibe too, I was just testing you.” - Sam joked and leaned his body closer to Cap, earning a moron look from Steve. - “And you have obviously passed, gee. Spare me those moral looks. Now, what would I do? I would play along. She doesn’t have a clue of who she is writing to, your formal name isn’t that known. I would be the guy she met. Give it some time, you’ll see if she’s hot, and then, maybe some mingle can happen, if ya know what I mean.”

“First of all, champs.” - A humming could be heard coming from the sofa which meant that Bucky is up as well. - “You two are so fuckin’ loud. Second of all. Do you really want to just lie to that lady, Steve?” - Bucky sat up, looking at those two fellas camping at the table; he looked like a Jesus Christ Superstar as Sam used to call him when the morning came.

“Get those Jesus moral thoughts out of here, Buck. I didn’t say to hurt her, did you even listen to a word I said?” - Sam looked Bucky down with his judging stare and proceeded to frown at him.

“Nobody talked about hurting somebody, birdbrain. But I and Steve were raised with manners back in the good old days. And this isn’t how we would have behaved.” - Bucky leaned into the back of Sam’ chair, looking Steve directly into the eyes. - “You’re the biggest gentleman I know, Rogers. Steve would not lie to a lady.”

“Yeah, Jesus. But he can’t just say Hey! I am Captain America! That girl could just sell his number to some interviewers. Do we want that? No!” - Sam and Bucky had their fight fully on and Steve knew that he can’t stop them at that point. Both were speaking the truth - he was a gentleman, indeed, but he couldn’t say to her who he really is. She must have not connected two dots - not many people knew that Captain’s name was Steve Rogers. Maybe in the sixties, but now?

Yeah, he was taught about in school in history, but usually, the young ones had no interest in it. There was a huge probability that the girl didn’t even know who Steve Rogers was.

“Okay, stop it.” - Steve shouted in panic, looking at those two arguing like a married couple. Bucky and Sam immediately stopped, watching him. - “What should I do?”

“Well, do you want to text with that lady?” - Bucky raised his eyebrows. It was a simple yes or no questions and yet Steve sat there like he couldn’t count to five. Then he nodded lightly.

“I guess so. I don’t know who she is, but she seems to be fun with those nicknames. Let’s give it a shot.” - Steve smiled a bit, relaxed about that situation.

“Listen up, Iceberg. I will tell you what to write.” - Sam leaned closer and started talking.

Steve: I don’t really know what you’re talking about, sadly. Maybe you have met someone different and he didn’t write his number, right? My name’s Steve by the way and it’s really nice to meet you. If you want, I don’t mind to keep this texting on. :)

And he was especially proud about that emoji in the end.

——-

You almost jumped on the phone when it vibrated again. It was from Steve. Did he recall meeting you? As you read the text in your car, you hummed sadly. It wasn’t that man from the bar after all. This was some strange Steve who was well mannered and who was obviously pleased to meet you. That was nice. He wasn’t trying to cut the conversation down, which was lovely as well.

Y/N: Nice to meet you Steve and I’m sorry for waking you up.

And this is how it all has started.

#Steve Rogers #steve rogers x y/n #steve rogers x reader #steve rogers imagine #captain america #samuel wilson #the falcon #james buchanan barnes #bucky barnes #the wintersoldier #the winter soldier #marvel #mcu #avengers #hello there #enjoy bitches

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olehistorian · 5 years ago

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https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-interview-imelda-staunton-is-tight-lipped-on-playing-the-crowns-future-queen-pkzpb76b2

Have you watched Vera Drake lately? Obviously, you have to be in a certain Saturday-night mood to turn off The Masked Singer and choose to put on Mike Leigh’s tale of a big-hearted backstreet abortionist in the East End in 1950. But it’s worth another visit. It’s one of the great British films and turbo-boosted the careers of many a character actor. Leading the ensemble cast in the title role — in an Oscar-nominated, Bafta-winning performance — was Imelda Staunton, who would become queen of them all. And possibly even the Queen. We’ll come to that.

“Just the best, best, best job of my life,” is how Staunton reflects on Vera Drake now. “Yeah, it was very hard to continue after that.”

After Vera Drake, Staunton had the little-old-lady role pretty much sewn up. The “little” is unavoidable. She’s 5ft nothing. In the hotel sideroom in which we meet, she fidgets on the edge of an armchair, sipping a juice a similar shade of green to her blouse and trench coat, which she keeps on throughout the interview. The “old” is perhaps more unfair: she was in her forties when she played Drake. We meet the day before her 64th birthday. “I think a lot of women now don’t think about their age because it’s changed for women, hasn’t it?”

She did “harrowing” again last year in ITV’s true-crime A Confession, playing the mother of Sian O’Callaghan, the 22-year-old from Swindon who was murdered in 2011. But otherwise, of late, she’s been — in the nicest way possible — British cinema’s arch biddy: in the gay-rights drama Pride; in Nanny McPhee; in the Downton Abbey movie alongside her husband, Jim Carter, who plays the long-suffering butler Carson; and as Professor Dolores Umbridge in the Harry Potter films. It all comes back to Mike Leigh. “I wouldn’t have got Harry Potter if my profile hadn’t been upped with Vera Drake,” she says. “They might have wanted me, but I wasn’t, you know, hot enough.”

At the end of last year, it was reported that the ultimate little-old-lady part was coming Staunton’s way: succeeding Olivia Colman as the Queen in series five and six of The Crown. Netflix played it down as “speculation”. But at a charity event at the Ivy before Christmas, Grant Tucker, the Sunday Times entertainment correspondent, asked Staunton’s husband, Carter, what it was like being married to royalty. “Thankfully I don’t have to start bowing to her for another two years,” he replied, “so I have plenty of time to practise.” So it’s true? Staunton’s reply is immediate, polite and professional: “I can’t discuss anything to do with that.” Which isn’t, you’ll note, a no.

She tells me she woke up at 4am today, thinking about her next big gig — Hello, Dolly! at the Adelphi Theatre. It isn’t on until August. Rehearsals don’t start until June. But “to me, that’s 10 minutes”, she says. “I just know the process is beginning. As Jim said, ‘This is the rest of the year, is it?’ I think about it and think about it. ‘How the hell am I going to do that?’ [Past success] means nothing at all, because it’s the next challenge. The more people say, ‘Ooh, it’s going to be great,’ the more I just get so depressed.”

And what success. In the West End, she’s busted free of the twinsets to become a bona fide, big-lunged musical star — a pocket rocket with a trail of five-star reviews and awards in her wake. Her first Olivier was back in 1991, for Into the Woods. In 2013, she won one for Sweeney Todd, in which she appeared alongside Michael Ball. Stephen Sondheim saw her performance and told her she should take on a revival of Gypsy next. The 2016 Olivier followed for that.

Her dog, Molly, a terrier, appeared on stage with her in the early performances of Gypsy, at the Chichester Festival Theatre. One time, during the West End run, a mouse snuck into her costume. “I did the whole first 20 minutes with a mouse inside the sleeve of my coat, singing the song, carrying on the scene. It’s good what your head can cope with, isn’t it?” It’s not the sort of thing that should happen to a Harry Potter star, surely? “That’s what you want. That’s the reality of the glamour of the thing.”

Staunton grew up in Archway, north London, above her mum’s hairdressing shop. Her dad was a labourer. Her mum, a first-generation Irish immigrant, was a big fan of the Queen. She died just before her daughter received her Oscar nomination for Vera Drake, and before Staunton collected her OBE and later CBE from the palace. “She’d have bloody loved all that,” she says.

She went to a convent school — “a really nice one because we had a lot of lay teachers”. Her report cards read: “Imelda could try harder, but she was very good in the play.” Her elocution teacher, Mrs Stoker, pushed her towards Rada, where contemporaries included Alan Rickman, Timothy Spall and Juliet Stevenson. When she got her first job in London, in 1982, it was in a musical: Guys and Dolls at the National Theatre. Staunton, by now used to lead roles, was only in the chorus. “I was thinking, ‘I just played Electra, what am I doing? Oh God.’” But Ian Charleson, Bob Hoskins, Julie Covington and Julia McKenzie were higher up the bill. “That’s what I was doing there: learning, really, really learning. That was wonderful.”

Also in the cast, seven years her senior, was Jim Carter. They married the following year. In 1986 they appeared together in Dennis Potter’s classic TV musical The Singing Detective. But, until the Downton movie, their working lives seldom intersected. “We don’t ever try not to work together — we just haven’t,” she says. “On the Downton film, we got completely overexcited, as we went to work for three days at the same time. What was lovely was doing the publicity together: travelling, just being in a hotel. We made sure we enjoyed ourselves.”

They have had a long-standing pact not to spend more than a couple of weeks apart, a rule Staunton broke to film Ang Lee’s Taking Woodstock (no, me neither). “I think it was five weeks: I was in America and thought, ‘Yep, that’ll do.’”

She enjoyed last summer filming Flesh and Blood, a new four-part ITV drama, on the coast near Eastbourne. “The sea does do something different to you, doesn’t it? I do think it would be brilliant to have somewhere by the sea, but it’s not going to happen.” She’s happy at home in Hampstead with Carter, walking the dog, spending days at the Test match and doing the gardening: “That’s probably an older person’s thing to say. Well, f*** it, you know? It’s healing, really healing. Having a stable place to come back to is quite necessary for me and for Jim, I think. It nourishes us. It allows us to go into a place that isn’t comfortable because you know you can get back to a more comfortable place.”

Flesh and Blood is an example of good parts being written for older people, especially women. “I’m encouraged by it,” says Staunton. “Very encouraged.” It’s not so much a whodunnit as a whodunnwot. In its rather gripping first episode, there’s a mystery body on a beach and a recent widow (played by 74-year-old Francesca Annis) starting a new life with a new fella who has a whiff of the gigolo about him. Staunton is back as the little old lady, Mary, a creepy next-door neighbour with a pair of binoculars and penchant for opening other people’s mail. This primetime drama does contain scenes of pensioners smooching.

“It’s not just for the sake of it,” says Staunton. “This isn’t trying to be ‘Oh, we’re beautiful things having sex later in life.’ There’s a loving relationship developing. The fact that [in one of Annis’s scenes] the dressing gown slips off is not extraordinary.” Would Staunton ever want a crack at being the older woman getting the, ahem, action? “I don’t think that would be required,” she replies. “I don’t think so, no — not unless it was funny.”

We talk about the trial of the film producer Harvey Weinstein. What experience has Staunton had of that grim — and criminal — casting- couch culture? “None. Absolutely none,” she says. “I’m not surprised [that it goes on], but I’ve always been in situations where women are treated equally. In the rehearsal room, women behave as they wish to behave and are listened to, and that’s normal. I never thought, ‘Oh, isn’t this marvellous, somebody’s listening to me?’ I’ve never witnessed it, but I hope good will come out of this. The irony of that” — she pauses to choose the word carefully — “situation is that that man [Weinstein] has made good things happen now. Hurrah.”

It won’t come as too much of surprise that she voted Labour in last month’s election — her MP, Tulip Siddiq, has a 14,000-vote majority in Hampstead and Kilburn, Glenda Jackson’s old seat. Staunton voted for remain. She also featured in a video last year for Extinction Rebellion, organised by Richard Curtis. “It was a friend who said, ‘Could you come along, they’re just doing it today, this bit of filming.’ Well, I was doing nothing else. I’m not climbing up the side of a building, so I’ll go and do that. If I can help, I’ll do that. As much as we can all do, every little bit helps.”

Does she worry about putting her head above the parapet like that? “No, not at all. That’s the only bloody point of any slight fame: you’ve got to use it, to put it to good use.” She has also provided the voice for some polar bears for Greenpeace. “Trump is just an absolute … It’s just a nightmare, and the climate’s a nightmare and Brexit’s a nightmare. And yet I wake up thinking about Hello, Dolly!”

At 64, Staunton seems to recognise that a Vera Drake or Hello, Dolly! might not roll round again. Even Harry Potter was, she says, “a very serious piece of work, weirdly”. She feels lucky that an actor’s life goes on. So no plans to retire? “I don’t think people do, do they? Name me an actress! No, you won’t get bloody Maggie Smith retiring. It’s a very nice job, if you can get it.” Plus, she’s still hoping someone will cast her alongside her 26-year-old daughter, Bessie, also an actress. “I’d love that. Let’s keep our fingers crossed.”

I hope they do give her the Queen job. If there’s anyone who could add some plausibility and empathy to the madcap past 12 months of royal history, from Megxit to the sweat-free antics of Prince Andrew, it is Staunton. I would pay good money to watch her, in standard-issue HRH lemon-yellow frock and tight-curled wig, look up, fix her aide with a stare and utter the words: “A Pizza Express … in Woking?”

Flesh and Blood is on ITV in February

#imelda staunton #interview #new projects #jim carter #real life otp #the crown #downton abbey film

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lostgirlrewatch · 5 years ago

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1x08 - Vexed

Original Air Date: November 7, 2010

Written by: Michelle Lovretta

Directed by: John Fawcett

Okay, so. Vexed.

This is the original pilot. I don’t think they necessarily presented it as the first episode chronologically—more like, this is what you can expect from our show. Showcase picked it up and it went to series. Vexed became episode 1x08. You can find more info about it in this interview with Michelle Lovretta and Jay Firestone.

Anyway, this episode was shot earlier than the rest, and you can tell. Makeup and styling is different, and they hadn’t quite settled on the tone they eventually went with. As such, this episode is a bit grittier than normal. I find it interesting both for its different tone and for the fact that many of the decisions they made for the episode were made in the interest of selling the concept to Showcase.

This fucking article is great and is a much better review of this episode and why it’s so god damn good than my shit below. It also provides an extremely detailed look into...exactly what I just described above. All of the behind-the-scenes production stuff. Check it out.

The premise: Bo finds a lead on someone who might know about her mother--a falsely accused death row inmate named Lou Ann. Bo vows to prove her innocence in exchange for answers, but her quest leads her into contact with a vicious Dark Fae named Vex.

I do wonder if they wrote this episode without really knowing where it was going to fit into the first season, assuming they had an outline. It works as a standalone and in some ways it feels a little disjointed from what came before in episode 1x07, right from the beginning. Dyson coming right out and saying something so blunt as, “She’s never gonna love you,” feels a bit off to me. But then again, all the characters in this episode are a bit “off,” which is understandable. This episode is like…the prototype. The beta.

“No offense to my own kind, but humans are a little pedestrian now.” *awkwardly laughs* Right... “your kind”…haha you’re enslaved. Lauren are you okay.

“Once you go Fae you never go back, huh?”

“So I hear.”

Me:

Bo feels a little bit more aggressive to me in this episode, like when Siegfried mentions her mother and she wigs out. It’s her normal desperation plus a bit of added homicidal urges. She’s a slightly grittier Bo.

As we can observe from the opening sex scene between Bo and Dyson, this episode is a bit more sexually explicit than we’re used to. This, I am not super a fan of on a personal level. However, the episode is also more violent than usual and incorporates horror elements. This, I am super a fan of because that’s kind of my shit, and it’s something I wish they would have leaned a little bit more into in the rest of the series.

There is nothing I don’t love about this scene. The creepy opera music that sets the stage, the gourmet meal prep (those gourmet meals always end in murder).

(Am I the only one who loves this random little detail they plopped into the background?)

Vex’s entrance—not overly dramatic, just, boop, there he is.

The tense build-up as we’re drawn to the knife, not sure where it’s gonna go—

--oh, oop, there it goes.

We know what’s going to happen now, but we build up to it, agonizingly, anyway. Surely we’re not actually going to sit here and watch as he shoves his hand into the disposal and then keep watching as he turns it on and it grinds his hand up. Oh, but we are.

Some scenes have a way of sticking with ya.

So I guess even the Lost Girl universe isn’t all camp and games. People are still people. Especially when they’re ancient as fuck and have all that time to stew in the cesspool of their fucked up emotional and psychological issues. So divorced are they from the concept of mortality, growing up and growing old, that their maturity level laps itself and becomes immaturity—they tend to to behave like children.

Not all Dark Fae are curmudgeonly, innocuous old grandpas who own restaurants or absolute Queens like the Morrigan. Some of them are like Vex. And just like, fuckin murder people—and each other. Vex’s world is different than Bo’s world. Vex lives in a world where violence is mundane. Empathy is nonexistent and pointless anyhow. Sometimes I wonder if immortal characters are drawn to violence and death because it’s as close as they can get to experiencing a sort of vicarious mortality.

I love Vex’s character throughout the series—up to a certain point—but I love him best in this, his original episode. In later episodes, Vex is portrayed as a sort of morally ambiguous anti-hero, or anti-villain, whichever you prefer. I have mixed feelings on how well the transition from villain to anti-hero is handled. The farther along you get in the series, the more he becomes reduced to a shell of his former self, purely comic relief, and just…sucks.

But in 1x08, Vex is a villain. Straight up. The things that he does are horrifying and the show does not bother trying to get you to empathize with him. And to be clear, this does not mean that he is not a multi-dimensional character, that he isn’t worthy of empathy, or that he is pure evil. What it does mean is the show does something I wish more shows would do. It creates a genuinely threatening and reprehensible villain that is both worthy of your analysis, even your stanning (I stan), and yet whose actions are still inexcusable.

In that interest, let’s talk about him. At this point, his most defining characteristic, the simplest way we can begin to understand his motives, is that he utterly lacks empathy. Vex is the kind of person who would puppeteer a woman and force her to drown her own children.

He is ordered to kill this woman’s family as punishment for betraying the Dark Fae’s rules. And in this episode, Vex is shown to be someone who rigidly follows the Dark Fae’s orders without question, and without any particular investment in them either. But he doesn’t just kill the kids—he uses his powers to force the mother to do it. To drown them. For no real reason other than his own amusement. That’s another level of sadistic. For a less intense example, in his introduction scene, he gruesomely tortures Siegfried before killing him. Just for funsies. (Well, okay, and to get information.) Vex lacks empathy, clearly, and may scan as a sociopath, but he’s not a stoic one. He gets enjoyment out of tormenting his victims.

Is this the kind of guy the writers are going to try to later convince us is a harmless comic relief mascot? Surely n—

Yes. Yes he is.

I am not at all opposed to the idea of Vex slowly becoming a morally ambiguous anti-villain, even a member of the gang. In fact, I think that premise is interesting as hell. But what I feel like happens later is that the show kind of forgets that Vex did all this horrible shit in the past. Kinda brushes it under the rug. Not only does this make it a lot harder for me to get behind him becoming one of the gang, it also does the character himself a great disservice. I’ll probably get into this more once Vex starts showing up more frequently, and why I feel the writers mishandle him.

To be clear, in spite of how sadistic he is, Vex is not a malicious person. He doesn’t have any enmity for the people he’s ordered to kill. He’s not angry, not hateful, not spiteful. He just doesn’t really care. He’s almost a kind of nihilist. None of it really matters. Somebody who thinks like that would have a fairly breezy time killing people.

Because I like when in-universe politics make things complicated, I like that the in-universe politics of the Light and Dark Fae makes things complicated. Bo wants to free Lou Ann, and she wants the Light Fae’s help, but they can’t help her because it would mean basically declaring war on the Dark Fae. MAJOR no-no. Likewise, they can’t go after Vex because all of his actions are sanctioned by the Dark Fae’s government. Bo’s unalignment gives her freedom, but it’s not without its downsides. She has no influence and no resources when things get too big for her to handle.

“Smells like fried bitch.” An icon. If I remember correctly from one of the behind-the-scenes features, they brainstormed and tested out a bunch of different one-liners to use for this moment, until Ksenia Solo ad-libbed this.

Lol. Kenzi is just so done with Bo and Dyson’s drama.

Lou Ann, the Fae woman who is on death row for killing her kids, obviously strikes a nerve with Bo.

It’s kinda weird, because when we first meet her, Bo’s main motivation is that she wants to be able to live her life without being forced to kill others and stay on the run to do so. Those problems kinda get solved in the first episode.

Since then, her motivation has been to live her life without these big mysterious Fae governments telling her what to do. In the first episode, Bo, like Lou Ann, says that she chooses humans. Bo was raised human and wants a normal human life, or as normal as she can get. At the same time, most of the other characters on the show, including her friends, spend a lot of time trying to convince her to embrace her Fae identity and a Fae lifestyle, because it’s “who she is” and she has no choice but to embrace that. “Choice” is a keyword that gets thrown around a lot in this show. But what is the show really trying to say about it? There’s some kind of nature vs. nurture conflict going on here, and I don’t feel like either Bo or the show itself has really decided on which side of the line they fall. On another note, this show has huge Fuck the System vibes. Which I appreciate. We stan an icon who chooses to reject a static, repressive, harmful system even at great personal cost.

A few episodes ago, Bo and Lauren went on a mission together and cemented their bond of trust. In this scene, Lauren breaks that trust.

She sleeps with Bo to distract her from going after Vex, under the pretense that it is simply the culmination of them both being attracted to one another. The next morning, it doesn’t take long for Bo to figure this out. She is appropriately hurt. She has feelings for Lauren, there was an intimacy there, and she trusted her in a way that she doesn’t normally trust other people, because of her past. Lauren took advantage of her feelings and used her. Whether Lauren wanted to do it or not, whether she had any way of refusing, isn’t relevant in this moment; it was cruel regardless.

But what does Lauren say?

“I haven’t done anything wrong.”

Oop. There it is. There’s the Lauren I remember.

She hasn’t done anything wrong, y’all. Well, I’ll be damned. Lauren never did anything wrong ever in her life. *Lauren did nothing wrong meme*

The way Lauren says this line, with so much conviction, makes me feel like she genuinely believes it. She believes that she did nothing wrong. She is legitimately deluded about what just happened.

This is only the first in what I remember to be a very long string of instances where Lauren pushes blame onto others and denies any culpability in her shitty actions. At least, in this case, Bo isn’t buying it.

Waiting for Bo in the most extra-ass, goth, flamboyant setup possible is exactly the kind of quality villainy I expect from Vex.

It’s criminal that Bo never gets to use this awesome sword.

And…I love that Vex just gets to walk out of there, laughing. Because the system. And he’s not even really evil. He’s just a sadistic asshole. With a job. It’s. *chef’s kiss*

#lost girl #bo dennis #kenzi malikov #lauren lewis #vex #doccubus #dybo #dyson #1x08

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rmg91 · 6 years ago

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The Woes and Antics of Living Together-5

This chapter behaved much better than 4 and I'm really happy with it as this is just one of the many scenes I've been wanting to write. Also I still love writing Branch when he starts to freak out XD

Enjoy! And A big huge Thank you! to all who’s read so far! I can’t tell you how happy it makes me~

Previous Chapter/Next Chapter; AO3/FF.net

@writerofberk Chapter 5 is here!! And I’m nice to Branch for once! And to answer your question from last time, Creek is currently just an annoyance but we both know he’s a creep and that will come out later.

~*~*~*~*~*~

It was another dreary and overcast day in Bergenville and the last few weeks had a been a test for Branch's patience. He had found out that Poppy loved to sing or just play music late at night while she stayed up studying or scrapbooking. And, sure, Branch could admit he loved her voice to himself, but he really disliked being unable to sleep because she couldn't keep it quiet enough. He even threatened to throw her radio out the window! It had worked...until the next time it happened and she got caught up in the music as she claimed. He had made a mental note to invest in some ear plugs.

Then there was the 'Laundry Incident' where somehow some of her...unmentionables had somehow wound up in his hamper. Branch hadn't known how to react to seeing the lacy scraps of fabric settled among his clothes so he had turned around and walked out of the laundry room. He had returned a few minutes later, a confused Poppy in tow and gestured to his basket as he told her to remove the offending articles. She had at least looked a little embarrassed as she picked them out and claimed she had no idea how they got in there but Branch had already been ignoring her excuse and trying to forget it even happened. He later found out it had all been some sort of weird prank by Smidge and Cooper as he returned to the apartment.

Mix in the normal stress of university and trying to find a new job and you'd get a very irritable Branch who was going just the tiniest bit stir-crazy. Gristle had managed to tempt him out of the apartment a few times to hang out and play video games but Branch needed something to do besides the chores around the apartment. Something to keep him from letting all his pent up feelings for Poppy flow out into poem after poem or even the grey thoughts that circled around in his head somehow finding their way onto paper and making him feel worse for having acknowledged them. And having the means to pay his half of the rent that was coming up would be nice too.

Branch felt himself bring the knife down on the carrots he was chopping with a little more force then was necessary before he focused once more on the task at hand. Right, dinner. He was making stew and needed to concentrate so he didn't cut himself and have to be sent to the hospital. Finishing up cutting the root vegetable, he threw the pieces into the pot alongside the onions and celery, giving everything a little stir afterwards. Branch then started to prep the rest of the ingredients just as the door opened and the pink haired party girl flounced in.

"Oh, Roomie~! I'm home!" Poppy sang as she dropped her purse on the foyer table before skipping into the kitchen, bracelets jingling, "And guess what?!"

Branch rolled his eyes and continued with his food prep, "What?"

Poppy giggled before slapping down a piece of paper on the counter, "I picked you up an application for a job I think you'll like!"

Branch paused and looked at her before glancing down at the application, at a loss for words, "...You, uh...didn't have to do that."

"I know." She chirped, "But I was heading home after getting some more streamers for Biggie's big photo exhibit and I saw this sale at this cute boutique on the way home." Branch rolled his eyes as she started to ramble. "Anyway, on my way back to my car I noticed a place advertising for some help wanted and I thought it'd be perfect for you! Guess what sort of place it is?!"

"I'd really rather not," Branch sighed, "Just tell me."

"No fun." The pinkette mumbled before she continued, "It's a camping-outdoorsy sort of store! Sells all that equipment and stuff and I figured what was the harm of picking up an application for you, cause you always liked camping when we were kids and being in the garden and such!"

"That..." Branch was once again at a semi-loss for words, impressed she remembered that, "I'll...give it shot. ...Thank you."

Poppy smiled happily at him, "No prob, my dude. So!" She then clapped her hands together, looking at the unassembled ingredients, "What's for dinner?"

Branch shrugged as he stirred the vegetables, "Nothing fancy. Just some stew."

"Still sounds great. Can I help with anything?"

"No!" He vehemently refused, "I'm not letting you anywhere near real food again! Not after last time!" Said last time being when she decided to experiment by adding too many spices to the sauce for a lasagna he was making. He swore never to let her near his cooking again.

"It was a mistake! I didn't mean to add that much!" Poppy cried in her defense, hands flying to her hips.

"Don't care."

Poppy huffed and crossed her arms, "Not fair..." She then hummed as a thought hit her and Branch suddenly felt fear as she went to grab her camera.

She fiddled with it for a moment as she turned it on before she started talking to it, "Guys! Branch is being so unfair! He won't let me help with dinner because of one little mistake!" She brought the piece of equipment over and almost thrusted it in his face, "Tell them, Branch! Tell them how mean you are to your precious roommate!"

Branch ignored her as much as he could as he started to cut up the meat, "Poppy, we've been over this. I'm not talking into a camera to people over the internet. Now turn that thing off and get it out of my face. I'm trying to cook."

"Rude!" She exclaimed before pouting into the camera, "Guys, comment below and tell Branch how rude he is."

"Quit involving me in your internet shenanigans! I want no part of it!"

"Too bad~ As my roommate you are contractually obligated to appear in my vlogs."

Branch gave her a flat look, "I remember nothing about that in our deal. No where did we talk about you trying to film me!"

"It's one of the many unwritten rules of friendship, Branch, duh. And no where did we talk about you being such a sour puss all the time and yet..." She trailed off with a shrug.

Branch rolled his eyes, exasperated, "Go do something that's not bothering me."

She grinned cheekily, "Aww, but it's my favorite hobby! The 'Bother Branch' game is fun for all ages."

"Poppy..." He groaned.

She giggled as she turned off her camera, "Fine, fine but only because I don't want you to cut yourself."

"Gee, thanks so much."

Giggling, the pink haired whirlwind skipped away to her room and Branch thought maybe he'd get to finish cooking in semi-peace until she came back out, arms laden with scrapbooking materials. She dumped all of it on the coffee table before turning the stereo on and bouncing in her seat to the pop song playing. Branch heaved a sigh and tried his best ignore the overly preppy music, reminding himself to invest in a pair of earplugs as soon as he could.

~*~*~*~*~*~

The next day found Branch standing in front of the store Poppy had told him about, application in hand. He had to admit as he looked though the windows it definitely looked like a place he would have loved to explore when he was younger. He had always loved the outdoors and the sense of accomplishment whenever he managed to succeed in a task that would aid him if he ever had to face the wild alone. He also remembered spending almost all of summer camped out in the backyard and begging his grandma to let him stay there just one more night whenever the new school year started to approach. But that had all stopped when-No. He wasn't going to think about that or any other time before else he'd never get this over with and right now, finding a job was more important than thinking back on times that were never going to happen again.

Steeling himself up with a deep breath, Branch entered the store and took it in. A display for a tent sale sat in the front with aisles of supplies stretching toward the back, all manner of camping items in stock. Tents, sleeping bags, lanterns, chairs, portable stoves and just about anything else one could possible need was there, which was just a little impressive for how small the shop appeared on the outside. Off to the side was a single check-out counter and a cashier wearing a green and brown vest, playing on his phone. He glanced up and put it away before addressing Branch.

"Hey. Welcome to Clever Camping. How may I help you?"

It was now or never. Branch cleared his throat, "Uh, yeah. I saw you were hiring so I filled out an application." He hoped that didn't sound as awkward as it felt as he handed over the piece of paper.

"Great!" The blonde exclaimed, "I'll give this to the manager. He's actually in the back right now if you want to wait a few minutes. He may be able to give you an interview today."

Branch sure wasn't expecting that but nodded anyway, "Sure. No problem."

"Nice. Be right back!"

As the employee scampered off to the back of the store, Branch let out a slightly panicked sigh. Okay, sure, he could do this, it's not like interviews were nerve wracking already! He just had less time to prepare that was all! He quickly brushed off his shirt and tried to make himself look somewhat presentable as he paced around. He could do this, it was fine, this could be good! Or bad, very, very bad.

As Branch continued to try a fight off the impending urge to run and hide, he failed to hear the little bell above the door chiming. He was completely unaware of no longer being alone until the other person spoke up.

"Excuse me, young man?"

Branch tried very hard not to yelp as he turned to face an elderly woman. She had grey haired wrapped up in a bun, a crocheted shawl around her shoulders and was holding a cane. She smiled at him, wrinkles crinkling as she did so before adjusting her glasses. She had a very grandmotherly aura about her and Branch tried very hard not to think of his own at that moment.

"Um, yes?"

"Do you think you could me?" She asked before pulling out a list from her purse, "You see, my grandson is going on a camping trip with his scouting group and I'm afraid we don't have much of anything that he'll need. Could you help me find them?"

Wait...Did she think he worked there?! He had to tell her she was mistaken! But then another traitorous thought of his own grandmother slipped though and he knew she would be very disappointed in him if he refused to help this lady. She had raised him to be a gentleman after all. Sighing, he nodded and walked closer so he could take the list from her.

"I can try."

"Oh, thank you so much~" She grinned at him.

Branch nodded awkwardly and unfolded the piece of paper she had handed to him. Tent, extra tarp or canopy, sleeping bag, sleeping pad, repair kit, pillows, extra blankets, headlamp or flashlight, lantern with appropriate energy source and a plethora of other items. Branch was impressed by how thorough this list was, it was almost as if he'd written it. Glancing around the store to figure out where to start first, he grabbed one of the hand baskets and began leading the woman around.

The first aisle they went down had portable stoves and the like, making Branch wonder if maybe he should have chosen a different aisle as there didn't seem to be anything they needed down this way. However just when he was going to suggest they try a different row, he spotted the lanterns and flashlights. He had a brief thought about how it would be more efficient if perhaps these items were put toward the front of the row but pushed it back as he looked at the different items, wondering which would be best to suggest.

"So, uh...How old is your grandson?" Maybe knowing the age of the kid would help him determine the item.

"Oh, he's nine going on ten." The old woman gushed, "He's so excited for this trip. The first time he's ever been camping."

Branch tired to flash a smile at her before nodding toward one of the better battery powered lanterns, "This one would probably be best then. It runs on batteries but it's a good sturdy plastic and waterproof, so no one would have to worry about fuel or rusting. It's also in a good modest price range, in case you're wondering."

"Well then that sounds just perfect." She grinned brightly, "I truly appreciate you helping me."

"It's..uh...it's no problem."

They continued like this up and down the aisles, Branch pointing out the products he thought would be best, remembering more of his own experiences with camping. He suggested an extra raincoat. insect repellant and a small first aid kit, stating that it never hurt to have some back-up in case something happened to whatever the scout leaders brought. Branch was just double checking everything so far before they went to look at the tents and wondered where the employee that had greeted him was and if he was going to come back anytime soon.

"Ok, so it looks like all that's left is a tent and maybe a sleeping bag? Was this already checked off?"

"Oh, I thought we had one, so yes it was but it turns out it was horribly moldy after getting wet somehow. So yes, we do need a new one."

"Alright, this way."

He was perusing the different styles of tents, trying to find the best one for a kid when a tall, broad shoulder man came around the corner from the back. He had chestnut hair, brown eyes and wore a grin and vest like the other employee, the only difference was he also had a pin that dubbed him the manager.

"Hello, there!" He greeted warmly, "So sorry for the lack of greeting when you came in. Is there anything I can help you with?"

"Oh, no. Your employee here has been so helpful and has given so much advice for my grandson's upcoming trip."

The manager smiled down at the woman, "I'm afraid he doesn't work here...yet." He then turned his grin on Branch, "Tell me, son, are you the one who turned in the application Denis brought me a little while ago?"

"Uh, yes?" Stupid! Don't sound so unsure!

"Reed Langley!" The man proclaimed, offering his hand to Branch.

Shocked for a second, Branch startled before shaking his hand, "...Uh! Branch Hawthorn, sir."

"Well, Branch, you're hired!"

"Huh? But, uh...What about an interview?" Was this really happening?

Reed laughed, "I think helping this lovely lady here when you didn't have to speaks volumes more than me asking you some questions. So what do you say?"

What did he say? Oh right! "Um, sure. Yeah! Of course! Thank you?"

"Not a problem!" Reed laughed again, "Denis! Go take the sign out of the window!" There was brief 'yes, sir' from the other worker before Reed continued, "So, Branch, why don't I let you finish helping our customer here and then while Denis is ringing her up, we can talk and set up your schedule. Alright?"

"Yeah, sure. Okay." There was no way that just happened, right?

~*~*~*~*~*~

A few hours later, Branch had wandered back to the apartment, still somewhat in a state of a shock. He just couldn't believe he was hired right on the spot like that just for helping someone! That just didn't happen! Of course he wasn't going to kick a gift horse in the mouth, it..felt kind of nice to have a job again and the store really wasn't the worse place to be in. Still, Branch couldn't help but be wary of the universe and wonder what it would do to him this time to knock him down again.

Sighing to himself, he was grateful Poppy was gone as he needed a few moments to gather himself and to work out a new plan. He wandered over to the couch, flopped on it, and flinging an arm over his head went over what had happened after he helped the old woman find a tent and new sleeping bag. His new boss didn't mind that he would be working part-time, said Branch going to school was great thing and that if he ever needed to take an extra day off to study for a test or midterm to just let him know ahead of time. He would start his new job in two days and he'd have a twenty percent store discount, which would be nice if Branch ever decided to go camping again. However that meant he'd have to work out some sort of chore chart with Poppy as he wouldn't be around as often, even if that would mean trying to trust her in the kitchen with actual food now.

Making a few mental notes to himself, Branch yawned and shifted on the couch, finding a comfortable spot. He felt himself grow drowsy and knew he probably shouldn't fall asleep on the couch, he didn't want to temp Poppy into pulling some sort of prank. But as sleep claimed him, he decided he just didn't feel like caring if she drew on his face or covered him in glitter.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Yay! Branch has a job again! And at a much nicer environment! I can't tell you guys how much I've been wanting to write Reed (even if he didn't have a name until I started writing that part XD) and that whole scene. And to be fair, Poppy can cook, she's just better at baking and accidents with overly large holes in spice containers happen.

I hope you enjoyed! Stayed tuned for the next installment!

#Dreamworks Trolls #Branch #Poppy #Broppy #fanfiction #Human AU #Modern AU #Roommate AU #dreamworkstrolls #i love this chapter

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katemarley · 7 years ago

Text

fanfiction: a chapter in their career

Fandom: Hetalia - Axis Powers Pairing: Austria/Spain Characters: Austria, Spain, Estonia, Netherlands Rating: T

Summary: As a race engineer, Roderich Edelstein is the right hand of Formula 1 driver Antonio Fernández Carriedo. Roderich works hard to ensure Antonio is able to make the most of his car at all times. With rivals who never rest and up-to-date technical gadgets that aren’t always reliable, theirs is a demanding job. Being hopelessly in love with each other doesn’t make things easier.

A belated birthday gift for @salytierra! I hope you’ll like this.

This story is also available on my AO3 and fanfiction net.

“I’m getting closer to Bonnefoy, but the motor sounds strange,” Roderich heard Antonio’s voice over the pit to car radio.

“Need to check, but you go on. It’s only three laps,” he told his driver, closing the voice channel in order to consult with the data engineers of their team. Roderich was moderately worried. Antonio and him both knew three laps could be a very long time if something serious was wrong with the car.

“The motor, right?” was the first thing Eduard von Bock, one of the data engineers, told him.

“I don’t like the sound of that.” The race engineer instinctively pulled a face, even if Eduard couldn’t see that.

“Yeah,” Eduard said. “About that. The bad news is I can’t tell you what exactly is wrong with the motor at this point. All I know is it’s got something to do with the ERS and it’s making the motor overheat rather quickly.” ERS was short for Energy Recovery System, a system whose purpose it was to retract energy from a car’s exhaust gas stream. “He should switch that one off.”

“Try switching the ERS off,” Roderich told Antonio as soon as he had him on the radio again. “The motor is overheating because of it, but we don’t know why.”

There was a short pause in the channel.

“Well, fuck.”

“You can’t switch it off?”

“I can’t do anything about the motor.”

Roderich swallowed a few swearwords of his own. They were so close to the finish, on position two with one car and on position five with the other, and now technical problems ensued.

“Okay, then focus on completing this race and don’t risk anything.” Unsatisfying as it was, it was the only thing he could tell his driver right now. Of course they would analyse the problem as soon as both Antonio’s and Jan’s car were back in the box. At least Jan, the second driver of their team, appeared to be doing all right. As long as a car was on the circuit, however, there wasn’t much they could do if the motor didn’t behave in the way it was supposed to.

The following minutes were among the longest in Roderich’s life, and he knew this was even truer for Antonio. Had he been a nail biter, that would have been the moment in which he’d have resorted to that bad habit. The way it was, he only grit his teeth and pressed his lips together, watching the video coverage of the race while listening to a multitude of pieces of information over the team radio and ever more worrying status reports on the motor.

It was almost anticlimactic when it happened. During a straight passage, Antonio’s motor simply stopped working, even allowing him to steer his car to the side before it came to a halt.

During the final lap. On position two.

Roderich could hear swearing from Antonio over the pit to car radio. His own feelings were crushing disappointment rather than anything else, but there was no way he could allow his emotions to rule him now. Antonio was a very good and reliable driver, but he had a hard time dealing with disappointments that weren’t his fault. And in many cases, a motor that didn’t survive a race was not the driver’s fault.

Knowing Antonio very well by this point, Roderich left the pit as soon as the race was over, not even waiting to congratulate Jan for his fourth place. A final glance at the live coverage told him that Antonio had left his car by now. He was leaning against the wall separating the start and finishing straight from the pit lane, helmet next to him in the grass, arms crossed over his knee. Roderich walked up to him, ignoring the people running to and fro and the reporters who tried to get an interview from a driver or a team leader.

“Go away, Rode,” Antonio mumbled as soon as Roderich was close.

“No.” He flopped down in the grass beside the disappointed driver.

“I don’t want to hear anything.”

“I’m not saying anything.”

“But you will! How this is not my fault. How it wasn’t my fault I was kicked out of the race by that crash in Australia, and how my car getting hit by debris from that crash in Canada wasn’t my fault either.” He ran his hand through his hair. “It may not have been my fault, but in the end, it’s only the result that counts. And the result is that I didn’t complete three races this season so far, no matter the reasons.”

“There’s still half the season ahead of you,” Roderich pointed out. He attempted to speak soothingly. Sometimes it worked; other times, it only made Antonio more aggressive. “As time goes on, the others will have problems, too. Even Bonnefoy and Adnan. You can still win.” Francis Bonnefoy and Sadık Adnan were the drivers of their major competitor, with Bonnefoy currently on position 1 and Adnan on position 3 in this year’s driver’s championship.

This time, Roderich’s words seemed to have a calming effect. Antonio sighed.

“You know what I’d really like to do now?”

Roderich blinked, waiting for an answer. Antonio covered his mouth with an arm, taking precautions so no lip-reader could figure out what he was saying. There were cameras everywhere, and many things were treated as secrets by the teams.

This wasn’t one of them.

“I’d like to rest my head in your lap and have you pet my hair.”

There was a moment’s silence in which Roderich needed to recover from a sudden impulse to hug Antonio.

“We’ll get to that,” he replied. They would indeed. Roderich’s parents lived close to the circuit at Spielberg, Austria, and they didn’t ask questions when he invited a person over to stay whom the media had called “one of his closest friends” more than once.

Of course his parents knew what was up, but the good thing about Formula 1 was that it was pretty normal for a team to stick closely together for most of the year. No one batted an eyelash when a race engineer, as the person working closest with a driver, requested adjacent hotel rooms for last-minute discussions. No one was surprised when race engineers and drivers appeared at the factory together, even if it was a little unusual for a driver to focus this much on the manufacturing of his car. Then again, there were many drivers who were car enthusiasts in general, and Antonio was one of them. Hell, no one even became suspicious when a driver and a race engineer went on holiday together! Booking adjacent rooms, it went without saying.

Sometime towards the beginning of their relationship, they had considered coming out together, only to discard the idea quickly. Both Roderich and Antonio considered themselves bisexual, and the risk to their career, Antonio’s in particular, outweighed all advantages of being open about a potentially short relationship.

They were together for five years now, and Antonio continued to bring that topic up from time to time. It was Roderich’s part to dissuade him from the idea, taking care to act in a driver’s best intentions even when he wasn’t on duty.

Roderich remembered the beginnings of their relationship as if it had started only yesterday. They had been elevated from data to race engineer and from test to regular driver almost at the same time; two ambitious and enthusiastic young men whose aim it was to have the world of Formula 1 racing at their feet. Roderich was the reserved and level-headed part of their alliance and Antonio was the one who carried the audience and the reporters along with his impressive driving skills and warm-hearted personality.

Soon, Roderich caught himself developing a crush on Antonio. His first reaction was to put more distance between them, starting to keep their interactions to a purely professional level. He still came to the parties that were held on race weekends because it was expected, in a way, but he made sure to leave as early as possible. Antonio was kind enough to walk him out of the premises, expressing his regret at Roderich’s early leave. More than once, Roderich was tempted to confess to him why it was wiser that he didn’t stay around, but every time, he didn’t dare to change anything about the way Antonio perceived him. What if the knowledge his race engineer had feelings for him that exceeded any measure of propriety lead to a decrease in his performance on the circuit?

Winter came, and the racing season was over. Roderich hardly saw Antonio anymore; just for the driver’s occasional visit to the factory, getting informed about the development process of the car he would drive the following season. During lunch in the factory canteen, Antonio invited everybody at his table to his birthday party in February. There was hardly any option for Roderich to refuse; not with everybody else at the table accepting enthusiastically.

“I’m very glad you’re coming, too,” Antonio told him right before they said goodbye to each other, looking into his eyes with sincerity. Roderich did his best to ignore the warm and fuzzy feeling that spread through his body at hearing Antonio’s words; to no avail. That feeling carried him through the Christmas season and New Year, inducing him to spend way too much time on selecting an appropriate birthday gift. In the end, he settled on pumpkin oil and Traminer wine from his uncle’s vineyard in south-eastern Styria. During the racing season, he had learned Antonio enjoyed gastronomic specialties, even if he used to eat and drink moderately so as not to add too much to his car’s minimum weight.

The party took place in Madrid where Antonio lived. Like most of the guests, Roderich was staying at a hotel nearby, arriving at Antonio’s house barely later than the designated time. Antonio accepted his gift happily, guiding him to the guests who had already arrived.

The party proceeded quite nicely, with rock music blaring from a hi-fi system in the living room, an assortment of tapas the host had made all by himself, as he assured them proudly, and a variety of alcoholic beverages. Roderich drank a little more than usual because the quality of the wine was outstanding and because he was nervous, but it wasn’t nearly enough to get drunk. Nonetheless, the warm and fuzzy feeling while Antonio talked to him made him question his ability to estimate his limit.

Did he sense correctly that Antonio was spending far more time with him than with his other guests, chatting about his family and about how he had always liked cars, even as a little child? It had to be wishful thinking, Roderich decided. Antonio was just a thoughtful host, dividing his time equally between his guests so everyone received the impression they were important to him.

Nonetheless, Roderich stayed far longer this time than for any of the celebrations during the racing season. Talking to Antonio made him forget the time. There was also the wine and the warm feeling that had come to stay, and in the end, Roderich was the last guest to stay. It was five in the morning; he was pretty tired and a little drunk, and when Antonio put an arm around his shoulder, he allowed it to happen.

“Maybe you should go now,” Antonio said.

“Your body language says something else,” Roderich pointed out. He was too tired to be able to monitor his speech in the way he was used to.

“Maybe that’s because I don’t want you to go.”

There was a short silence. Roderich’s heart suddenly beat twice as fast. He started to hope.

“You don’t know what you’re implying,” he said nonetheless. Antonio wasn’t anybody, after all, and homosexuality in sports was still pretty much of a taboo.

“Yeah, yeah, think of your career and all that jazz,” Antonio said. “I know. Stop acting as the race engineer for a little while, will you?” He took Roderich’s chin in one hand. “It’s okay if I kiss you, right?”

Instead of an answer, Roderich leaned closer, bridging the gap between them.

Kissing Antonio was as pleasant as talking to him. Roderich was too tired to get more than mildly aroused, but these things could wait until later. Antonio holding him, kissing him, running his hands through his hair … Kissing back, tangling his hands in Antonio’s curls, nestling his body against Antonio’s on the couch … That was what mattered for the time being.

Roderich exhaled. Keeping a relationship in a workplace environment meant continuous maintenance work. Then again, that was basically his job description.

“Come along, Toni, you can’t stay here for forever,” he said, getting up from the grass. “You need to shower, and we need to see if the others already found out what was wrong with your motor.”

“Yes.” Antonio sighed. He pushed himself up, picking up his helmet as he did so. Roderich extended a hand to him because it looked a little inelegant. Toni accepted the hand, but only used it to keep his balance.

“Now, Toni, what is it that you’re actually worried about?” Roderich asked as soon as they were back in the pit, having replied to the questions of reporters who had stayed them with a few stock phrases—huge disappointment; need to wait for a thorough analysis—and, of course, after congratulating Jan for coming out fourth. There was a room reserved for the drivers where the two of them were able to talk without disturbance.

“I—,” Antonio started, but an opening door and Eduard’s voice spared him an answer.

“Guys,” he exclaimed. “We located the problem!” Antonio’s attention was easily diverted, not just because of his genuine interest to learn about the reasons for his car’s outage, as Roderich suspected.

“What was it?” Antonio asked, waiting eagerly for Eduard’s reply.

“Part of the insulation chipped, so particles of it got in the oil circuit, damaging the MGU-H, the turbo charger, and the fuel pump.” The MGU-H was an electrical machine connected to the exhaust turbine of the car’s pressure charging system.

“Good job,” Roderich said to Eduard. “Now that we know what the problem was, we can avoid it for the future.” He nudged Antonio in the side, attempting to raise his spirits. Eduard nodded, focusing on his work instead of on the compliment.

“Exchanging the pump won’t be a problem at all, but according to the regulations, we aren’t allowed to use more than five of the other two parts per season. That means we need to check those we have left in order to avoid anything like this from happening again in the remaining races.”

“Good luck! I’m sure you’re going to do a great job on this,” Roderich said.

Under ordinary circumstances, Antonio would have said the same, only more enthusiastically than Roderich. This time, however, he simply nodded with a smile that only seemed to be genuine. Roderich was worried.

“To reiterate my question,” he began as soon as Eduard had left. “What is it that you’re actually worried about?” Antonio took a deep breath, then exhaled.

“Us,” he said bluntly.

“Care to explain?” Roderich sat down on the only chair in the room. He had the impression he needed to sit for this kind of talk. If he was truthful, there had always been a sense of apprehension at the back of his mind; the feeling that this was too good to be true, that he did not deserve this man who was not only capable and passionate about car racing, but also gentle and beautiful and, last but not least, also rich and famous.

“Don’t give me this kind of look,” Antonio complained.

“I don’t even know what kind of look I give.” Roderich raised an eyebrow.

“That look as if you’re mentally preparing yourself for a breakup.” Antonio exhaled again, flopping to the ground next to Roderich’s chair. “I’d never want that to happen.” He leaned his head against Roderich’s thigh, avoiding looking at him while he talked.

“Then what is it that you’re so worried about?” Roderich barely resisted the temptation to act on his promise to pet Antonio’s hair then and there.

“I’m worried I might get kicked out of the team if I continue to underperform. I’m worried it won’t matter that none of my three outages were my own fault. And, most of all, I’m worried you will stay in this team while I leave, and … and …” Antonio breathed loudly, obviously trying to hold back tears. “We have so little spare time. How are we supposed to keep up our relationship if there’s no official reason for us to see each other anymore?”

“Oh Toni.” Roderich slid down from the chair and took Antonio in his arms. “My Toni. Listen. Will you listen to me?”

Antonio sniffled, nodding and clinging to Roderich for dear life.

“There has never been any talk of replacing either you or Jan. Both of you are wonderful drivers. If anything, you’ve become better over the years, and the nerves you show me now never got in the way when you needed to control your car.” He took Antonio’s head in both hands. “Okay?”

“Okay.” Antonio sniffled.

“To address your fear we might break up as soon as we’re not on the same team or the same car racing series anymore…” Roderich brushed a few stray locks behind Antonio’s ears, making sure Toni was looking at him. “Don’t worry. We wouldn’t be able to sleep in the same hotels anymore, yes, but we’d spend as much of our spare time with each other as we could. Everyone knows we’re friends by now anyway.”

“Friends.” Antonio spat the word out.

“I know, darling.” Roderich kissed him, just like that, in a room with an unlocked door. “I’m only doing this because I don’t want to be responsible for destroying your career. If I could singlehandedly make everyone interested in motorsports accepting of sportsmen who aren’t heterosexual, I would. I’d marry you in a heartbeat and wear our ring proudly on my finger.”

“You’d…” Antonio’s features softened. “Did you just … propose to me?”

“I guess so.” Roderich coughed nervously. “Though I suppose it would be better if we postponed … Whew!” Antonio hugged him firmly, knocking the wind out of him. “If we postponed this for as long as your career lasts. Uuh … That’s enough, I can’t breathe!”

“Until the end of my career?” Antonio loosened his grip on him instantly. “But … that might be a long time!”

“I sure hope it will be a long time,” Roderich said firmly. “And I hope you’ll be as eager to spend your life with me then as you are now. Because I will always love you.” He looked straight into Antonio’s eyes. “I will always, always love you. No matter what happens. Please remember this.”

“I will remember.” There it was at last, Antonio’s genuine smile. “And I will always love you, too.”

“Thank you.” Roderich returned his smile.

This time, Antonio didn’t need a helping hand to pull him off the ground. Instead, he helped Roderich back on his feet.

“Shall we?” Antonio placed his hand on the door handle, pushing it wide open. “I’m sure Eduard and the others are already waiting for us.”

Notes:

Yeah, I love SpAus and I enjoy watching F1. That’s how this fic came to be. Sorry it took so long, Rina!

Of course I did some research, but I’m not an expert on the technical side of F1 racing nonetheless. Please bear with me (and feel free to tell me) if you are and notice mistakes. In any case, Antonio’s outage is based on an actual outage of Lewis Hamilton’s Mercedes in 2016.

#spaus #spaaus #aph austria #aph spain #hetalia #aph fanfiction #hetalia fanfiction #my fanfiction #aph estonia #aph netherlands #aph #fanfiction

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anomad74 · 8 years ago

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Sacrifice

Disclaimer: It’s fiction, it’s not real.

Time setting: 5 years after season 23

“Hey”

“Hey you. How are you feeling?”

“Bitter. Life is so unfair.”

It was the second year of Sharna’s tenure in the Broadway production Chicago. It was hard work but Sharna was getting rave review as Roxie Hart. But in one unfortunately performance, Sharna fell awkwardly down the backstage stairs and broke her leg. After the surgery, the doctor has declared her unfit to dancing professionally.

It was hard for Sharna to swallow. Dancing was her life, her passion and leading a Broadway show was her dream come true. She was at the top of the world. She was enjoying her life. But suddenly, everything was taken away from her.

After the accident, she shut everyone out. Only three persons were able to talk to her: Woo, Pita and James.

Woo came straight away after hearing the accident. She was by her side through the whole ordeal. She knew that her baby needed her. Sharna cried and cried in her mother’s arms. Even a strong woman like Sharna is, when life threw her a curveball like this one, it is extremely difficult to deal with.

Pita, her best friend, has been the positive light for Sharna. She encourages her during the recovery, planning the dance studio that they will open together in the future. Sharna’s mood had ups and downs. Pita was the anchor in Sharna’s life.

James, the only person that Sharna can open up to, was at the show when the accident happened. They have stayed friends ever since their season together. They have been there for each other for the past years, helping each other through failed relationships, career impasse and several life decisions.

Their relationship is interesting. They both knew that they were attracted to each other but timing was never right. But it has been an unspoken thing. They care for each other greatly and they would not do anything to jeopardize that.

James was the only person with Sharna in the hospital after the accident. He was with her in the ambulance holding her hand. He was in the waiting room during the 6 hours surgery. He was the only one with her when the doctor gave her the bad news. He was the only one person on this earth that Sharna could truly be herself with. Because he has seen all of her. ALL.

After a long recovery, Sharna left the Big Apple and moved back to LA. She politely refused all visitors, even good friends, because she didn’t want them to see what a mess she was. Not so much physically because she can walk normally now, but psychologically. She has lost the spark in her eyes, her energy and her love in life. It is easy enough for her friends to spot that because she is so different now. Sharna didn’t want to see pity, so she refused to see anybody.

Her daily routine is simpler now: walk the dogs and continue the rehabilitation exercises. Apart from that, there is hardly any human interaction for her. The only one left is her nightly call to James before she goes to bed.

“It is true. It is so unfair. Life sucks!”

“Hey! You are suppose to cheer me up! Hahaha!”

“Well, it worked, didn’t it. You are laughing now.”

“You are amazing.” Sharna whispered.

“Yes, I AM! I AM THE MAN!”

“Hahaha! Yes, yes! You are the man, ok?”

James always finds a way to make Sharna laugh and she has been expecting the call everyday impatiently ever since James has to go back to his day job.

“I accept. Oh by the way, this season, they have put the Indy500 as the last race of the season. The race is this weekend. As you know, THIS MAN is leading the championship at the moment. As long as I don’t fuck up in the last race, I should be the champion this season. Wait, I need to find a wooden surface.”

“WHAT?”

“Touch wood! I didn’t want to jinx it. Hahaha…”

“Oh boy…. So what about the race?”

“Oh yes, the race, can I have the honor of inviting you to this last race? Remember, last time you came to my race, I won. So I need my good luck charm please. I’m willing to beg or pay or whatever.”

“So beg, pay and whatever… Hahaha!!!”

“Please…. Please come, please, please, please. You can have my prize money and I will do whatever you say for one day.”

“Done! Now go and book me a flight! Mama is going to collect some prize! Hahaha!”

“Oh muffin, for my lucky charm, I’m sending the jet!”

“Even better!”

“Pack you bag, a car will come to pick you up tomorrow at noon.”

“Man, how do you know that I’m gonna say yes.”

“I speak Sharna, remember?”

“I hate you.”

“I hate you more.”

“Goodnight. I will see you tomorrow then.”

“Night, I will pick you up at the airport.”

Sharna has been to a few of James’s races before and they are more or less the same. She is used to the noise and she knows everybody in the team. So when she stepped into the main tent, everybody greeted her with a great cheer.

“We all pitched in for the jet, you know?” laughed James. “You are very important for all of us”

“Hi everybody, you all know that if THIS guy win here today, he will be unbearable for the rest of his life right?”

Everybody burst out laughing.

“I feel sorry for all of you and his future wife, whoever she is”

Everybody was sort of looking at Sharna smiling and suddenly Sharna felt something. She couldn’t quite get it but she sensed they are all hiding something.

“Maybe it’s nothing. I haven’t talked to so many people for a long time” she told herself.

The rest of the week was endless testing, tweaking, testing again. But all the hard work paid off. James has got the pole position of the Indy500. Sharna was there with the headphone, listening to the radio, cheering on. She was also working with the team and the IndyCar PR to arrange interviews. She was not planning to do all these because it has been a while since she has worked with so many people after the accident. But she was doing it for James, for her good friend who stood beside her when she most needed someone.

It was a very different experience for her. It was fun trying to arrange schedules and managing people. It was something she never thought she could do. But apparently she could!

The race day has arrived. James was extremely focused at winning and Sharna totally understood that. Just before James got into the car, Sharna gave James a huge hug.

“Go get em, tiger!” she whisper in his ear.

“I will see you at the finish line.”

“I’ll be there”

During the race, Sharna nervously watched on the monitor and prayed that this race will finish without incident.

It was touch and go. James had a difficult race because they were using a different strategy to most of the teams. But at the end, James persevered. He finished first just 0.2 second in front of the second car.

Sharna was over the moon. She couldn’t believe that she witnessed James first ever championship win. She was screaming and hugging everybody in the pit. It was like she has won the race herself.

Everybody, including Sharna run towards the podium area where James has parked his car in front of the podium. Everybody was congratulating him and their eyes met.

“You did it!” shouted Sharna.

“We did it” smiled James.

They hugged and they never wanted that moment to end.

“It’s time for me to go and do my thing up there.”

“Go! Enjoy the moment.”

Upon the podium, James received the winning trophy of the race and then the trophy for winning the season. During the speech, he thanked everybody in the team who helped him to achieve this. But he didn’t mention Sharna. Sharna didn’t care. She knew he was thinking about her. They have talked about this years ago. They didn’t want to attract unwanted attention to disrupt what they want to achieve in their careers.

Everybody was cheering and James continued.

“I have a special announcement to make today.”

“I have been racing for a long time now and I finally achieved my dream of winning the Indycar series and especially on this sacred race track of Indianapolis.”

“But as we all know, there are always things more important in our lives than our jobs, our passions. For me, this thing is a someone.”

Sharna is intrigued because she didn’t know James had a girlfriend at the moment.

“I will be taking one year of sabbatical from racing to be with this someone.”

“She told me long time ago that she wanted to tour the world but not for work. To tour the world to see all the amazing people and cultures in the world.”

Sharna is breathing heavily and barely holding back the tears.

“This someone has inspired me in so many ways that I can say that I’m standing here today, mostly because of her.”

“So, for me to say thank you, I will be taking her to tour the world so we can be inspired together.”

“My dear Sharna, would you like to tour the world with this pathetic little race car driver?”

Everybody turned and looked at Sharna.

Sharna is crying and smiling all at the same time, running to the podium.

James jumped down and hugged Sharna.

“So, what’s your answer?”

“Yes! Yes! YES!!!!”

The crowd cheered and the confetti popped.

“Why are you doing this? Why are you sacrificing one year of your career for me? Especially NOW?”

“Because I will do anything for you Sharna. Because I love you, I will sacrifice myself if I have to.”

“You are amazing!”

“I know, right? I must be crazy!”

“I love you. I really do.”

“So I guess I will have to do whatever you say not only for one day but for the rest of my life now…”

“Well, let’s see how you behave yourself!”

James leaned in for the longest kiss, EVER!

This is by far my favorite story that I have written. This is what I expect from their relationship. They don’t have to end up married but I wish they can support each other for better and for worse.

#james and sharna #Red Racer #fanfic #James Hinchcliffe #sharna burgess

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nevillwallace97 · 4 years ago

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How Long To Take Zoloft For Premature Ejaculation Stupefying Tricks

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#How Long To Take Zoloft For Premature Ejaculation Stupefying Tricks #Does Premature Ejaculation Cure

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fitnesswomenshealth-blog · 6 years ago

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Thousands of mental health professionals agree with Woodward, NYT op-ed author: Trump is dangerous

New Post has been published on https://cialiscom.org/thousands-of-mental-health-professionals-agree-with-woodward-nyt-op-ed-author-trump-is-dangerous.html

Thousands of mental health professionals agree with Woodward, NYT op-ed author: Trump is dangerous

Bob Woodward’s new reserve, “Fear,” describes a “nervous breakdown of Trump’s presidency.” Earlier this year, Michael Wolff’s “Fire and Fury” provided a comparable portrayal.

Now, an op-ed in The New York Moments by an nameless “senior White Residence official” describes how deeply the troubles in this administration operate and what effort and hard work is expected to protect the nation.

None of this is a shock to all those of us who, 18 months in the past, put collectively our have public services reserve, “The Perilous Situation of Donald Trump: 27 Psychiatrists and Mental Health and fitness Professionals Assess a President.”

My concentration as the volume’s editor was on Trump’s dangerousness due to the fact of my region of abilities in violence avoidance. Approaching violence as a community health problem, I have consulted with governments and international companies, in addition to 20 a long time of partaking in the personal assessment and treatment of violent offenders.

The e book proceeded from an ethics meeting I held at Yale, my dwelling institution. At that meeting, my psychiatrist colleagues and I mentioned balancing two important duties of our career. First is the duty to discuss responsibly about community officials, particularly as outlined in “the Goldwater rule,” which involves that we refrain from diagnosing devoid of a own assessment and without having authorization. 2nd is our obligation to guard general public well being and safety, or our “duty to warn” in scenarios of threat, which generally supersedes other regulations.

Our conclusion was overwhelmingly that our responsibility to culture and its protection, as outlined in our ethical rules, overrode any etiquette owed to a general public determine. That determination led to the collection of essays in the reserve, which contains some of the most distinguished thinkers of the field which include Robert J. Lifton, Judith Herman, Philip Zimbardo and two dozen other individuals. That decision was controversial amid some associates of our industry.

We now know a terrific offer about Trump’s psychological condition based on the voluminous information and facts he has offered by way of his tweets and his responses to genuine situations in real time. Now, this week’s credible studies guidance the fears we articulated in the e book over and above any question.

These reviews are also constant with the account I been given from two White Home personnel customers who known as me in October 2017 for the reason that the president was behaving in a method that “scared” them, and they considered he was “unraveling”. They had been calling for the reason that of the book I edited.

Once I verified that they did not understand the situation as an imminent hazard, I referred them to the emergency home, in buy not to be bound by confidentiality procedures that would apply if I engaged with them as a managing medical professional. That would have compromised my purpose of educating the community.

The psychology guiding the chaos

The author of the New York Moments op-ed can make very clear that the conflict in the White Home is not about Trump’s ideology.

The issue, the creator sees, is the absence of “any discernible first principles that information his selection producing . . . his impulsiveness [that] final results in 50 percent-baked, sick-informed and from time to time reckless selections that have to be walked back again, and there getting practically no telling whether he may possibly modify his thoughts from 1 minute to the next.”

These are definitely psychological indications reflective of emotional compulsion, impulsivity, bad focus, narcissism and recklessness. They are similar to individuals that Woodward describes in a lot of examples, which he writes were achieved with the “stealthy machinations employed by people in Trump’s inner sanctum to test to command his impulses and protect against disasters.”

They are also steady with the class we foresaw early in Trump’s presidency, which concerned us enough to outline it in our ebook. We tried out to alert that his condition was worse than it appeared, would improve worse above time and would inevitably become uncontainable.

What we observed were indicators of psychological instability — symptoms that would finally engage in out not only in the White Household, as these accounts report, but in domestic cases and in the geopolitical sphere.

There is a robust connection among fast dangerousness — the chance of waging a war or launching nuclear weapons — and extended societal dangerousness — guidelines that power separation of youngsters from family members or the restructuring of world-wide relations in a way that would destabilize the environment.

Getting worse

My existing concern is that we are presently witnessing a additional unraveling of the president’s psychological point out, especially as the frequency of his lying boosts and the fervor of his rallies intensifies.

I am concerned that his mental challenges could induce him to acquire unpredictable and most likely severe and unsafe actions to distract from his lawful challenges.

Mental wellness industry experts have normal treatments for evaluating dangerousness. Additional than a individual job interview, violence likely is greatest assessed as a result of past heritage and a structured checklist of a person’s qualities.

These qualities consist of a history of cruelty to animals or other folks, hazard taking, habits suggesting decline of control or impulsivity, narcissistic persona and latest psychological instability. Also of concern are noncompliance or unwillingness to endure exams or procedure, accessibility to weapons, lousy romantic relationship with major other or partner, looking at oneself as a target, deficiency of compassion or empathy, and absence of problem more than repercussions of damaging functions.

The Woodward reserve and the New York Periods op-ed confirm lots of of these traits. The rest have been evident in Trump’s actions outside the White Residence and prior to his tenure.

That the president has satisfied not just some but all these conditions should really be cause for alarm.

Other methods in which a president could be harmful are by means of cognitive indicators or lapses, since functions this sort of as reasoning, memory, focus, language and discovering are critical to the duties of a president. He has exhibited indications of decrease listed here, much too.

On top of that, when a person shows a propensity for huge-scale violence, these kinds of as by advocating violence from protesters or immigrant family members, contacting perpetrators of violence such as white supremacists “very wonderful people” or demonstrating oneself vulnerable to manipulation by hostile overseas powers, then these factors can advertise a significantly extra common society of violence.

The president has previously demonstrated an alarming escalation of irrational actions all through occasions of distress. Other folks have observed him to be “unstable,” “losing a step” and “unraveling.” He is probably to enter such a condition all over again.

Violent functions are not random occasions. They are finish solutions of a very long system that comply with recognizable designs. As psychological overall health industry experts, we make predictions in phrases of unacceptable concentrations of chance rather than on the basis of what is particular to materialize.

Trump’s impairment is a familiar pattern to a violence specialist these as myself, but supplied his degree of severity, a person does not want to be a expert to know that he is harmful.

What up coming?

I consider Woodward’s guide and the revelations in the New York Instances op-ed have placed wonderful stress on the president. We are now moving into a time period when the stresses of the presidency could speed up simply because of the advancing special counsel’s investigations.

The degree of Trump’s denial and resistance to the unfolding revelations, as expressed in a recent Fox interview, are telling of his fragility.

From my observations of the president more than extended time through his community presentations, direct feelings by means of tweets and accounts of his shut associates, I feel that the question is not whether or not he will appear for interruptions, but how before long and to what diploma.

At least various hundreds of psychological wellbeing specialists who are customers of the Nationwide Coalition of Anxious Mental Wellbeing Industry experts share the perspective that the nuclear start codes ought to not be in the hands of anyone who displays these ranges of mental instability.

Just as suspicion of crime need to lead to an investigation, the severity of impairment that we see should really guide to an evaluation, preferably with the president’s consent.

Mental impairment should be evaluated independently from felony investigations, making use of professional medical requirements and standardized steps. A sitting down president may well be immune to indictments, but he is subject matter to the law, which is rigorous about public safety and the proper to procedure when an individual poses a threat to the public because of psychological instability. In the circumstance of hazard, the client does not have the proper to refuse, nor does the health practitioner have the suitable not to consider the man or woman as a patient.

This evaluation may perhaps have been delayed, but it is nonetheless not much too late. And mental health specialists have in depth practical experience assessing, restraining and managing individuals substantially like Trump — it is pretty much schedule.

This is an up to date variation of an post originally posted on September 7, 2018 it displays new data about the author’s call with White Household employees.

Bandy X. Lee, Assistant Clinical Professor, Yale University of Medicine, Yale College

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alisonfloresus · 8 years ago

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CREATING VALUE

CREATING VALUE AND ART OF LEADERSHIP, A PRESENTATION DELIVERED BY MR AYOTUNDE OKUNOWO DURING THE ANNUAL SYMPOSIUM OF AGSOBA CLUB OF FEDERAL POLYTECHNIC ILARO, OGUN STATE.

Today is indeed a remarkable day. I therefore count it as a great honour to be among you to share some thoughts together. I thank the executives of the club for putting up this kind of forum and for inviting me here . This is highly commendable and I salute your outstanding leadership! I also greet my audience with great humility. It takes few men to rule the world, and the few I believe, constitutes this audience.

In 1900, the world panels of engineers had a conference on how to build a device that could fly on air, and at the end of the symposium, it was unanimously agreed that no metal could fly as anything denser than the weight of air can not be suspended in the sky, therefore the first possibility of building an aircraft was washed away. Just three years after, mere bicycle repairers, people who weren’t skilled in physics or aeronautics engineering, Orville and Wilbur Wright, known as the Wright brothers constructed the first aircraft which flew on 15th December, 1903. If we are to talk about cars, Lamborghini cars remain one of the choicest and sleekest cars in history. This car was actually invented by an Agricultural scientist. Ferrucio Lamborghini was just dissatisfied with the clutch of his old Ferrari, rather than complain as we often do, he went into his laboratory and gave birth to the world famous and classic cars called Lamborghini.

As we have seen from the verdict of history, creating value is not a function of degrees, certificates, race, colour, creed, or tribe. Value is a measurable quantity which is created after the most rabid, radical, unusual and provoking thought line. In essence, anybody that wants to create value must not accept the status quo or be complacent with things around him. He must be a person who is ready to challenge and probe into normal things. He must have the courage to stand alone. The sufficiency to be abused as an abnormal person, and his ability not to go in the way of the crowd, because he that follows the crowd would not be followed by a crowd.

Like my book thirty things you must do before you are thirty, I want to give you five great ways to create Value. And the first one is that anybody that wants to create value must think without the box. What is the box? How do I know whether I think in d box? Thinking within the box is the pancea of letting your self think alone only in the acceptable standard way of behaving or limit once oneself only to the limits of the comfort zone or popular knowledge. Let’s test ourselves and know whether we are thinking without the box or outside the box. lets test ourselves and know whether we are thinking without the box or in the box. If you are in a race, and you overtake the person in the 2nd position, what position are you- if u say 1st, you are thinking inside the box Which is correct to say, the yolk of the egg is white or the yolk of eggs are white- if your answer still carries white, you are thinking inside the box. A man saw a snake crossing the road, and swerved to crush it with his tyres. All the street lights were off, as well as the car’s headlight. There were no other lights along the road. How did the man see the snake- if you are still thinking about a source of light, you are wrong, you are thinking inside the box A father and the son had a terrible accident, on getting to the hospital, the doctor exclaimed, “oh my son” who is the doctor? If you do not know that the doctor is the son’s mother, you are still thinking inside the box A farmer has five haystacks in one field, and four haystacks in another. How many haystack would he have if he combined them all in one field.- if you say nine, you are right inside the box.

Distinguished audience, anybody that wants to create value must improve his thought line and think without the box. The very first law of creating value is to think outside the box. The late business mogul Otunba Gadaffi of DMT mobile toilet saw money in the management of human excreta called shit, while other were covering their nose and looking sideways. What is the box in your life, it is your parent’s wealth, your beauty, your grades, or your religion? Don’t limit yourself. Explore the genius in you. Tap into your greatest resource. Don’t be cornered by anything. There’s a part of your yearning for expression. Don’t allow anything to pin you down. Think without it. Beautiful Nubia read Veterinary Medicine, how many who have known him as a veterinary doctor, or how many who have known Funke Akindele (Jennifer) as a lawyer, or Lagbaja as a mathematician.

Secondly, anybody that wants to create value must invest in himself. Abraham Lincoln said, “I will study and prepare, maybe one day my chance would come”. Opportunity dances to him who is already at the dance floor. Now is all that we have. Those would want to become champions do not need to carry weights; those who want to become champions should simply carry information. Everybody that thrives for create an impact must take the pain to develop himself. No pain, no gain. Go for seminars, read good books, be a part of a progressive association, dissociate yourself from time wasters. Unnecessary arguments about music and sport hardly take a man anywhere. Moreover, poor minds discuss people, average minds about events and great minds about ideas. Greek philosopher Sallust said ‘the renown that beauty and wealth confer is fleeting and frail, mental excellence is the splendid and lasting possession’ Take the necessary pain of development now. I recommend you read more than your peers because a man who wants to build a cage would lay a slab of wood, a man who wants to build a house would dig six feet down, while a man who wants to build a tower would dig many miles down. How robust and productive you want your life to be depends on how deep and wide you read as a person. A poem says ‘the height which great men reached and kept were not attained by sudden flight, but they while their companion slept were toiling upward through the night’. Don’t join the bandwagon of those who ping their lives away, they can’t buy a book but they can subscribe for BIS with N1500. What are you doing in facebook and face their book; they should not be carried away with the glitz and glamour, facebook is a fakebook. The world would never celebrate common men, the world only celebrates the uncommon men. Leave the majority to do what the majority desires, but be part of the minority that the majority would later celebrate.

Thirdly, anybody that wants to create Value Must have the spirit of persistence. Recent statistic shows that man can survive 40days Without Food, 4days Without Water, 4minutes Without Air, but only 4seconds Without Hope. That reminds me of the story of two popular drinks. In one, the foolish inventor, the man whose name was rubbed of history, took a drink in a black kettle and the formula for preparing it and sold it to a chemist known as Asa Candler for a peasant amount. The wise chemist took the leaflet from the foolish scientist and modified it till it become coca cola that you and I drink today. On the other hand, the inventor of the second drink was abused for his tasteless mixture, people complained that the drink was more of a drug, a sedative than refreshing, yet the unrelenting scientist tried again, and at the 7th mixture the drink became celebrated and accepted hence he named it 7up. While the first inventor sold a fortune due to lack of persistence, the other scientist maintained his fortune. The kindergarten poem says “good better best, I will never rest, until my good is better and my better best” only with persistence did the snail reach the ark that was the summation of Andres Lara in his book inspiring the sleeping giant within you. Nothing is ever done at once. The tallest building in the world starts brick after brick. Rome itself was not built in a day. Life, like bicycle is one step after another. It is the sun and the moon which keeps their tracks that lightens the world. A goldsmith as you know would hit the steel hundred of times before it splits into two. The road to success is lined with many tempting parking space, don’t park in one. Sir Winston Churchill of Britain said thus; never, never, never, never give in. So far you are faced in the right direction, it doesn’t matter the size of your step

Anybody that wants to create value must be humble; ‘My character is greater than my book’, so were we taught in Abeokuta Grammar School. What would limit a man, is grossly is character, that is why you must always put some checks and balances, always asking yourself, whether you are doing the right things. You must have heard the story of two job seekers who went for an interview. When they got to the venue, a short man, typical of a dwarf, mistakenly stepped on one of the guys. As if they had prepared for such an encounter, our bosom friends lambasted the man and called him all sorts of name. They only got to the interview room to learn that the dear man was the dear boss of the organization. Do not look condescending on anybody. Have sublime faith in your ideas, even if you have the highest purchasing power. Never be like the hen that has barely laid an egg but cackles as if it as laid an asteroid. You may never know who is who. Greet everybody you know, by name if possible. Benjamin Franklin advised “Be civil to all, acquainted to many, liberal to few and be friend to one”Never taste what you know you cannot eat. Desist in neither taking nor accepting bribe. Do not pay for marks in school, if you think you can bury your past, some of your friends know how well to use the shovel. Exposing your body would get you a man but that would not keep him. Tread the path of honour. Be time conscious in all you do. Somebody somewhere is watching you that you might know. If you do not have a good name, you have lost everything in life. Take care of your character.

Value is also created by running from energy reducers. If there is any relevant example I must also give here, that would take us to Sparta, in Greece. The story about the rise and fall of the Greek empire is a story that tells us, that we can be a man or woman of consistent value, only if we can be as disciplined as it warrants. In the days when Sparta embraced great disciplines they were the greatest warriors known on earth. History has it that they wore simple garment, ate cold meal and put their time to the discipline of the art and mind. They were on top of the world. But sooner or later, the citizens of Sparta started to keep harem of women, drinking wine and wearing fine robes. Their power no doubt began to grow less until the very mighty city of Sparta was overcome. The presence of sheer indiscipline robbed them of their hereditary values. He that wants to lead the orchestra must back the crowd

Finally, anybody That wants to create value must belive in God, As H.G Wells, rightly puts it ‘A man who is not religious begins at nowhere, and ends at nothing. God is the grand architect of the cosmic host. If you want to have a glorious end, take God seriously. He holds the key to every success. By strength shall no man prevail. Post Santa simpilicita “the world is spiritually entwisted” Be a man of no little religious standard, there is power in words. It is like a hammer which forges steel and shatters glass. Confess the right things, say I am great always like the famous Mohammed Alli. Sow words of prayer into your life. Hold your articles of faith and never let it go. Education without God is a waste of time. but when F.W Nietzsche experienced the spiritual toxicity of this world, he cried: O santa simplicita-this world is not spiritually simple.

My passionate listeners, I have taken much time to dwell upon how to create value because that’s where leadership starts from. Anybody that creates value is already a leader. Like I told the young man who came to me few days ago. The young man said sir, I want to become a public speaker can you teach me how to become one?, I told the young man I said “if you want to become a public speaker, go and do something worth hearing, that is go and create value and people would call you to come and speak in public”. The leadership in you is not expressed until people sees you as a person of value who can be trusted with elements of power.

I would consider the whole essence of this topic as not totally dealt with, if I do not pick some lines from the words of the English writer, novelist, poet and journalist; Rudyard Kipling, in his classic poem, If…, he wrote “If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs, If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, If you can talk with the crowd and keep your virtue, or walk with kings- nor lose the common touch, If all men count with you, but none too much, yours is the earth and everything that’s in it” Then would you be a man my son!

from JournalsLINE http://journalsline.com/2017/06/09/creating-value/ from Journals LINE https://journalsline.tumblr.com/post/161609821100

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breakingnewsandsports · 8 years ago

Link

Your 20s can be a confusing time.

You might not be in school anymore, but you still have plenty to learn before you're a fully functioning adult.

Meaning now, you're on your own.

To help you navigate this tricky decade, we reviewed several Quora threads on helpful skills and ways to spend time in your 20s and highlighted the most useful insights.

Here are the life skills every 20-something should master.

1. How to just be honest

When you're late to an appointment, it's tempting to pin the blame on gridlock or train delays.

Instead, says Quora user Michael Hoffman, "just apologize. You don't have to give details. 'I planned poorly' is a hundred times better than risking your integrity by inanely blaming traffic."

2. How to receive criticism

No one likes to be told they're wrong or even that they could be doing something more effectively. As Abhinav Gupta writes, it's easy to resent the person critiquing you or completely ignore them.

Nonetheless, Gupta says, "in order to succeed in life you should always accept criticism and always respond positively to it and never think ill of people who point out your mistakes."

3. How to start an interesting conversation

"Conversation-making is probably the most underrated skill," says Deepak Mehta, who admits that he's a shy person who's always found it difficult.

But experience has taught him that if you dare to strike up a discussion with the person next to you, you might very well end up with a new friend, a business connection, or some novel insights on an old topic.

Start with these 13 ways to get better at small talk — like asking open-ended questions.

4. How to ask for something you want

"The ability to ask is the easiest, most underutilized skill to catapult your career," writes an anonymous user.

But if you don't muster up the courage to request a raise, a promotion, or a bigger sales deal, you have no chance of getting it.

If the thought of requesting what you want makes you anxious, the user suggests practicing in non-work-related contexts. For example, you could ask a vendor at a farmer's market for a lower price on your vegetables.

"The more you put yourself in uncomfortable situations," the user writes, "the more likely you'll decide they're not that uncomfortable after all."

5. How to keep your promises

Maybe you told a friend you'd show up to his birthday party, or maybe you agreed to finish an extra assignment for your boss. Whatever the situation, you should make good on your word.

"Break [your promise] and people lose trust and faith in you, which, over time, is very hard to mend," Hoffman says.

6. How to communicate effectively

No matter your career field, you can always improve the way you speak and write.

"Think about ways to challenge yourself and tweak how you write an email or behave in a meeting," the anonymous user suggests.

Here's an example: "During your next team meeting, resist talking about your idea or opinion right off the bat. Instead, count to five, and if you still feel like you have something relevant to contribute, speak up. On the flip side, if you're shy, challenge yourself to say what you're thinking, instead of remaining silent."

7. How to be resilient

The rest of your life is bound to include setbacks, sadness, and frustration (in addition to joy and excitement!). Carolyn Cho says you should use your early adulthood to figure out how to recover from mishaps:

"Your 20s [are] a time when most are relatively free of the responsibilities that will increase into your 30s and 40s. This is a great time to experiment, fail, and bounce back. Learn how to ride out failure and persevere."

8. How to demonstrate good table manners

"A lot of interviews take place over meals," writes Drew Pavilonis.

"Chewing loudly, or eating with your mouth open, licking fingers and utensils (yes, I've seen it), elbows on the table, just shows a lack of manners and social skills."

9. How to live within your means

Cho advises young adults to think carefully about all their expenditures:

"Luxuries are a wonderful thing only if you can truly afford them. Don't be a slave to funding a lifestyle that will not last. Learn to live modestly and save up, and then you will have earned the right to purchase yourself some treats, in moderation."

10. How to deal with rejection

Many people use their 20s to try new experiences, jobs, and romantic partners. Some of those attempts will work out, and some won't.

According to Joe Choi, it's a good opportunity to learn how to deal with rejection, whether it's from a dream employer or a date: "It's a tough pill to swallow but realize that rejection is quite normal. It's hardly ever personal and most importantly it's not the end of the world. Don't dwell on it. Keep your head high and keep trucking along."

"Life is full of challenges. The 20s are a great time to toughen up and start teaching yourself how to be emotionally and mentally resilient enough to weather both the joys and hardships to come."

11. How to learn without a textbook

Studying shouldn't be limited to your time in school. It "can be anywhere, anytime, and with anyone," writes Lenny Kho. "Keep your mind wide open."

You should always be seeking out new ways to expand your mind. Read books, practice speaking foreign languages, or take music lessons — whatever excites you most.

12. How to accept the possibility of change

Research by psychologist Dan Gilbert suggests that we have a hard time imagining how much we'll change in the future.

So it makes sense that Choi says, "It's near impossible to plan where you'll be a few years from now."

Choi uses his own trajectory as an example. During college he studied engineering, and he never imagined he'd move to rural Eastern Europe to harvest corn afterward — but he did. While living in Europe, he never thought he'd later move to a fancy building in New York City — but that's exactly what happened.

Expect to be surprised (hopefully pleasantly) by the way your life unfolds.

13. How to make a decision

"The bridge that leads from analysis to action is effective decision-making — knowing what to do based on the information available," writes Janic Butevics. "While not being critical can be dangerous, so too can over-analyzing, or waiting for more information before making a decision."

If you're more of an over-analyzer, consider trying an adapted version of the "gun test," which Stanford engineering professor Bernard Roth wrote about in his book "The Achievement Habit."

Pretend somone's holding a gun up to your head and giving you 15 seconds to make a decision. You'll definitely be able to choose something — and it will release a lot of pressure.

14. How to sell yourself

This skill isn't just for professional salespeople.

"Being able to sell yourself to others is a vital skill in any area of life," writes Lukas Schwekendiek. "In the working business you have to sell yourself to clients and potential employers. In finding a partner you must sell yourself to the person and your potential benefit to their life."

Try telling a story about yourself, since it will be easier for people to remember. And make sure that story sparks conversation among your listeners.

15. How to negotiate

Author and podcaster James Altucher highlights the importance of developing negotiation skills. He refers specifically to the tips he learned from former FBI hostage negotiator Chris Voss.

Those tips include getting people to say "no" when you want them to ultimately say "yes." For example, when you're negotiating the terms of a job and not getting your way, you can ask the hiring manager, "Do you want me to fail?" The answer is, obviously, no — and from there, you can start pushing for what you need.

16. How to listen without speaking

M. Malhan writes: 'By training yourself to be a better and ACTIVE LISTENER, you will be able to communicate more effectively and develop better relationships in life."

As Dave Kerpen, CEO of Likeable Local, previously told Business Insider, listening is the most important — and most underrated skill — in business and in life.

If you want to develop your own active listening skills, try "mindful conversation." Two people pair up and one person speaks for a set time period while the other is completely silent. Then, the second person reflects on what the first person said until the first person feels satisfied. Finally, the two people switch roles.

The goal of mindful conversation is to have less superficial interactions, to instead have interactions that leave you feeling like you and your conversation partner really understood each other.

17. How to be patient

There's no question that it's important to be ambitious and to work hard to achieve your goals — whether they include landing a spot in the C-suite or buying a house.

But try not to get frustrated if, at 25, you still haven't scored a promotion or saved up enough for a down payment.

Take a tip from Steve Kobrin: "Good things simply do not happen overnight. They take time to nurture and cultivate. They take a lot of work. A lot of thought. A lot of trial and error, and learning from your mistakes."

SEE ALSO: 19 signs you're a functioning adult — even if it doesn't feel like it

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NOW WATCH: TONY ROBBINS: What you need to do in your 20s to be more successful in your 30s

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